“Greece will continue to be one of Hungary’s close allies within the field of minority rights with regard to both the rights of national and religious minorities”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó declared on Monday in a statement to Hungarian news agency MTI on his visit to Athens.

The Minister took part in a conference entitled “Religious and Cultural Pluralism; Peaceful Cohabitation in the Middle East”, where he met with his Greek counterpart Nikos Kotsias.

Mr. Szijjártó told MTI: There is agreement between Athens and Budapest with regard to the fact that there can be no reduction in acquired minority rights.

“Accordingly, we will remain close allies, including in the situation brought about by the Ukrainian Education Act, with regard to which I, together with my counterparts from Romania, Bulgaria and Greece, have written to the leaders of several European institutions and to the Ukrainian Foreign Minister himself”, he added.

“The Hungarian Government has made is clear that as long as the recently adopted Education Act, which gravely violates the rights of minorities, remains in force in Ukraine, Hungary will apply all possible diplomatic means to force Ukraine to withdraw the regulations and give Hungarians back the minority rights that have been taken away from them”, he declared.

“Hungary can count on Greece as an ally in this dispute, because Greece also proclaims the principle that the rights of minorities must be protected. But this not only covers national minorities, but also religious minorities, and the alliance between the two countries is also close with relation to their protection. Like the Hungarian Government, the Greek Government is also playing particular attention to protecting Middle-Eastern Christians in view of the fact that Christianity has become the most persecuted religion in the world today: four out every five people who are persecuted for their religious beliefs are Christian”, Mr. Szijjártó pointed out.

“We must make it clear that we cannot allow Christian communities to be threatened with annihilation or be forced to leave their homes wither in the Middle East or in any of the world’s other crisis zones”, the Minister underlined.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade/MTI)