Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Wednesday his country had vetoed a NATO ambassadors' statement on Ukraine after they refused to respect the rights of the Hungarian minority
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th October, 2019) Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Wednesday his country had vetoed a NATO ambassadors' statement on Ukraine after they refused to respect the rights of the Hungarian minority.The North Atlantic Council met in the Ukrainian city of Odessa. Hungary suggested that their final statement demand that Ukraine reinstate the rights of ethnic Hungarians living in its west.
The proposal was rejected, and "we had no choice but to veto the statement," Szijjarto was quoted as saying in a ministerial press release.
He argued that allies across the Atlantic tended to overlook the Hungarian minority, "but we live here in Central Europe, and the interests of a single Hungarian are enough for us to stand up for them."
A new education law went into effect in Ukraine in 2017 that drastically reduced the use of Hungarian and other minority languages in Ukrainian schools. Hungary has protested what it sees as an attack on the rights of some 150,000 ethnic Hungarians.
