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Budapest links relations reset with Kiev to resolution of Hungarian minority issue

Hungary’s Prime Minister Peter Magyar said that improving the situation with the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia was regarded as an essential condition for the launch of negotiations on Ukraine’s EU accession

Hungary’s Prime Minister Peter Magyar Omar Marques/ Getty Images

Hungary’s Prime Minister Peter Magyar

© Omar Marques/ Getty Images

MOSCOW, May 21. /TASS/. Budapest is ready to reset relations with Ukraine on the sole condition that the rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine’s Transcarpathia Region are respected, Hungary’s Prime Minister Peter Magyar said.

"Our government is ready to open a new chapter in relations with Ukraine but first, the Hungarian minority must be granted basic rights," Magyar said in an interview with the Rzeczpospolita newspaper.

He stressed that improving the situation with the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia was regarded as an essential condition for the launch of negotiations on Ukraine’s EU accession. The Hungarian premier added that the parties were currently holding consultations on this issue at the technical level.

Bloomberg reported in late April that Magyar had demanded that the rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine be expanded before he okayed the start of Ukraine’s EU membership talks. According to the media outlet, Magyar stated this position in a conversation with European Council President Antonio Costa. Over the past few years, the previous Hungarian government led by Viktor Orban had demanded Kiev restore the rights of the Hungarian minority in the Transcarpathia Region, warning that otherwise, Budapest would not allow Ukraine to join the EU. Budapest has repeatedly noted that ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine were deprived of their rights after 2015, including the right to use their native language in the fields of culture and education.

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