Ukrainian politics has sunk to appalling depths according to Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó, who on Thursday discussed the issue with the NATO Deputy Secretary General and informed the U.S. State Department of the situation by telephone.

Following a press conference in Budapest on Thursday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade declared that Transcarpathian Hungarians can continue to count on their home country in all respects. Ukrainian decision-makers are talking about “proposals that conjure up the darkest of dictatorships” when they want to change the ethnic make-up of Berehove (Beregszász) and further reduce the ratio of Hungarians living there by settling Ukrainians in the city, he explained.

“However, the most shocking thing is that the neighbouring country’s government did not condemn this, nor did it protest about the fact that a petition published on the Ukrainian Parliament’s website talks about deporting Transcarpathian Hungarians”, he stated. “The Parliament in Kiev is colluding with those extremists who leaked the personal data of hundreds of Transcarpathian Hungarians, in view of the fact that identifying dual nationals is impossible based on public databases”, he said.

Mr. Szijjártó said there is no rational explanation for the Ukrainian decisions affecting the Transcarpathian Hungarian minority, and “all instruments of international politics” must be applied in the interests of regaining the rights of the local Hungarian community. The Minister also said that the LIBE proposal on the admission of refugees, which could encourage tens of millions of people in the vicinity of Europe to enter the continent in any way possible, was unacceptable.

The European Parliament “is always working on ways to reignite the wave of migration”, but instead it should be made clear that Europe can only be entered legally, he added. Mr. Szijjártó stressed that decisions on the admittance of all refugees must be made outside Europe in view of the fact that “refoulement policy has failed completely”.

(MTI)