Hungarian foreign ministry summons Ukraine ambassador – again
Ukraine’s ambassador to Hungary was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade again, this time over the issue of the church in Palagy Komarivci (Palágykomoróc), the minister of foreign affairs and trade said on Thursday, adding that Hungary was sending aid for the reconstruction of the church the same day.
Péter Szijjártó told a press conference after a meeting of the Hungarian-Uzbek mixed committee that the church of the village had been set on fire and anti-Hungarian slogans had been sprayed on its walls.
“Such attacks against a national community in a country supposedly aspiring for European Union membership are outrageous, astounding and disappointing,” Szijjártó said.
He insisted that anti-Hungarian attacks had started a decade ago “in the form of laws systemically curbing the community’s rights to the use of their mother tongue.”
“The Ukrainian state is responsible for that. We have been asking them to stop for ten years… We have indicated at all possible forums that Hungarians in Transcarpathia are suffering grave attacks. It started with laws and went on to forced conscription, assault and arson on churches,” he said.
Szijjártó also condemned European political leaders who “turned away and refused to acknowledge that the Hungarian community is suffering harsh attacks combined with physical intimidation in Ukraine, a country which they are trying to fast-track into the EU.”
He said he had given instructions to have the funding for the church’s reconstruction transferred to the diocese on Thursday.
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