The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine summoned Istvan Iidarto, the Ambassador of Hungary to Ukraine, due to ungrounded speculations about the alleged intimidation of Ukrainians in the Transcarpathian region.
According to the Foreign Ministry’s press service, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met with the diplomat. He called for the Hungarian side to avoid steps and statements that do not reflect the real situation and create destructive emotional tension in Ukrainian-Hungarian relations.
Kuleba also declared unacceptable the situation when Ukrainian citizens, united territorial communities’ deputies, sing the national anthem of any other foreign country, including Hungary, at their inaugural meeting.
In addition, the minister said that the investigative actions of law enforcement agencies in Transcarpathia take place exclusively within the powers and concern individual citizens, and are not aimed at the Hungarian national minority.
Simultaneously, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Siarto asked the OSCE to send representatives to Transcarpathia due to a scandal with Hungarians. The minister wrote about it on the Facebook page after a conversation with Ghent Chakai, acting Foreign minister of Albania, who chairs the OSCE this year.
“I asked him to send a special OSCE monitoring mission to Ukraine in the Transcarpathian region to investigate yesterday’s abuses against the Hungarian community,” Siarto wrote.
He stressed that observers should study the events at the local level and contact Transcarpathian Hungarians representatives.
To recap, Ukraine’s Security Service’s (SBU) investigators conducted several searches the day before under suspicion of some individuals in activities aimed at violating the state sovereignty of Ukraine.
Besides, a video of deputies of a territorial community in Transcarpathia singing the Hungarian anthem was posted on social networks. The Security Service of Ukraine said it would check information on possible signs of their illegal activities.
Bohdan Marusyak