Szijjarto: Ukraine’s slander campaign against Hungary has gained "new momentum"
Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said that Ukraine has allegedly launched a "slanderous campaign and propaganda" against Budapest, so negotiations on national minorities are now impossible.
He said this at a press conference with his Rwandan counterpart in Budapest, Censor.NET reports citing Index.hu.
The Hungarian minister claims that in the case of Kyiv's espionage accusations, "we are facing a huge, state-sponsored and controlled anti-Hungarian slander campaign and slanderous propaganda in Ukraine."
Szijjártó explained that since the war began and since the Hungarian government made it clear that it would not send weapons and money or stop energy cooperation with Russia, "a propaganda war against Hungary has been waged in Ukraine, and new chapters of it are constantly appearing, such as last Friday."
As for the talks on the rights of Hungarians in Zakarpattia, the Hungarian foreign minister believes that the time is less suitable for this because of the alleged intensification of the slander campaign against Hungarians.
Szijjarto called it a double standard on the part of the left-wing press that when the Hungarian government has consistently opposed the oppression of the rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine since 2015, they are suspected of pro-Russian sentiments, but when they cancel consultations on this issue "in the midst of a propaganda war," they immediately start worrying about the population of Zakarpattia.
"Of course, we would like to continue negotiations with Ukrainians about Hungarians in Zakarpattia, just as these negotiations have been going on for ten years, and for ten years Ukrainians have been promising us firewood, for ten years they have been cutting us down, and for ten years they have been continuously taking away the rights of the Hungarian people. Therefore, you can believe that the change in the anti-Hungarian policy of the last ten years in Ukraine did not and does not depend on these negotiations alone," he added.
What preceded it?
On May 9, for the first time in the history of Ukraine, the SSU exposed a Hungarian military intelligence network that was spying in Ukraine.
Following the SSU's announcement of the exposure of the Hungarian spy network in Zakarpattia, Budapest announced that it was expelling two Ukrainian diplomats, accusing them of espionage.
In response, Ukraine announced the expulsion of two Hungarian diplomats.
Hungary also detained and expelled an ex-diplomat from Ukraine.
Budapest canceled the consultations on national minorities scheduled for May 12 after the SSU announced that a Hungarian intelligence spy network had been exposed.
