Hungary is ready to agree to hold a ministerial meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Commission if Kiev returns the rights to the Hungarian national minority in Transcarpathia, but still does not agree to send weapons to Ukraine, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Economic Relations Peter Szijjarto said.
⠀
“The supply of weapons and the defeat of the rights of the Hungarian national minority have nothing to do with each other. We do not supply weapons because we think that they clearly lead to the prolongation and escalation of the war. If the Ukrainians restored the original rights of the Hungarian minority, we would not blocked, but would have agreed to hold a ministerial meeting of the Ukraine-NATO commission. We clearly associate this issue with the situation of the Hungarian minority,” Szijjarto said in an interview, answering the question whether Hungary was ready to provide military assistance to Ukraine in the event of positive changes in the situation with the situation Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia.
⠀
Since the beginning of the conflict, Hungary has consistently opposed sanctions on Russian energy resources and sending weapons to Ukraine. In early March last year, the Hungarian parliament issued a decree prohibiting the supply of weapons to Ukraine from the country’s territory. The head of the country’s Foreign Ministry, Peter Szijjarto, explained that Budapest seeks to secure the territory of Transcarpathia, where ethnic Hungarians live, since the supply of weapons through its territory would become a legitimate military target.
