By Ilayda Cakirtekin
ISTANBUL (AA) - Hungary’s foreign minister slammed his Ukrainian counterpart Monday for dismissing Transcarpathian Hungarians’ rights by calling them an “artificial problem.”
“Hungary will not accept the sacrifice of the rights of Transcarpathian Hungarians for Ukraine’s fast-track EU accession. It is outrageous that Andrii Sybiha called their rights an ‘artificial problem’ today,” Peter Szijjarto wrote on X, stressing that it was “totally unacceptable.”
He also called it “scandalous” that some European Union foreign ministers supported Sybiha’s position.
“Some foreign ministers have even gone so far as to question whether we Hungarians, the Hungarian government have the right to judge the situation of the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia at all,” he added.
Szijjarto said that some foreign ministers had claimed that it was not Hungary’s place to determine whether Ukraine respects minority rights but rather the responsibility of European Union institutions in Brussels.
“Brussels wants to sacrifice the Hungarian community of Transcarpathia and their rights just to admit Ukraine to the European Union at lightning speed without any kind of conditions that could be normally expected,” he added.