On January 27, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba held an official meeting with the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Hungary Péter Szijjártó, who arrived in Kyiv at the invitation of the Ukrainian MFA.
This was reported by the press-service of the Ministry of Foreign Affair of Ukraine.
The ministers had a frank conversation about the current state and prospects of Ukrainian-Hungarian relations given the circumstances and tensions caused by the actions of some Hungarian officials and their interference in the election process in Ukraine.
Dmytro Kuleba also highlighted Ukraine's constructive approach to resolving the issues of the Hungarian national minorities.
“There is no reason to believe that the Hungarian minorities’ community is prone to separatism. Just as there is no reason to believe that the Ukrainian state seeks to harm the Ukrainian Hungarians of Transcarpathia. We are one country, one society, and we will always be like that,” he stressed.
Ukrainian Minister noted that despite the tensions in the bilateral relationship, there are positive aspects of the cooperation between countries. These include Hungary's consistent support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity in countering Russian aggression, Hungary's support for Ukraine in the process of European integration, the rehabilitation of Ukrainian children affected by Russian aggression in Donbas and the joint efforts to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic. Hungary’s minister also expressed hope that today's meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart will bring results and they will manage to "stop the deterioration of our relations and channel this process into a good direction."
“Today we spoke as partners and friends who want to solve problems, not to create new ones. We have agreed on a meeting of the Ukrainian-Hungarian working group on education in the near future, and decided to hold an online business forum between entrepreneurs of Ukraine and Hungary,” Dmytro Kuleba said.
According to Dmytro Kuleba, the parties confirmed that the meeting between the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban remains on the agenda: “We will work hard to make this meeting as effective as possible so that this meeting opens a new page in bilateral relations based on the principle of mutual respect”.