Hungarian Foreign Minister accuses Ukraine of playing along with 'extremists'
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that the Ukrainian parliament plays into the hands of the "extremists" in the matter of the Hungarian community of Transcarpathia.
“The parliament in Kyiv plays into the hands of those extremists who have placed personal data of hundreds of Transcarpathian Hungarians [on the Myrotvorets website], just because citizens with dual citizenship cannot be identified based only on open sources, ” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Hungary quotes Szijjarto as saying .
The Hungarian minister was also surprised that Ukraine’s government did not condemn and protest the appearance of the petition on the website of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, which mentions the need to deport Transcarpathian Hungarians.
According to Szijjarto, such Ukrainian legislators’ proposals remind of "the dark dictatorship times, if they want to change the ethnic composition of the Berehove area, populating it with Ukrainians and reducing the proportion of the Hungarian population."
Szijjarto said that "Ukrainian politics has sunk to an incredible depth" and assured that Transcarpathian Hungarians can continue to rely on the support of their "parent state".
The conflict between Ukraine and Hungary over the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia continues for the second year. After Ukraine adopted the new law On Education, the Hungarian authorities accused Kyiv of infringement on the Transcarpathian Hungarians rights.
In September 2018, the relations became even more aggravated after the appearance of the online video, which showed that residents of Transcarpathia being issued Hungarian passports and asked to keep it a secret. The Foreign Minister of Hungary said that everything that happens in the video is legal and meets the international standards. After that, the Myrotvoters website published a list of 313 Transcarpathians who are the holders of Hungarian passports as well as civil servants and officials of the local government bodies. These people appeared on the Myrotvoters list because "they took the oath of allegiance to Hungary" while working in the public service and local government institutions. The head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Peter Szijjarto is part of this online list.