Hungary on bilateral agreement with Ukraine: it will not touch on NATO membership
Pravda Ukraine
Mate Paczolay, the spokesman for the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirmed the negotiations on a bilateral agreement with Ukraine, but said that the issue of Ukraine’s NATO membership was not discussed in it.
Source: Paczolay comments to the Hungarian pro-government MTI news agency; European Pravda reports
Details: The Hungarian representative said that negotiations on a comprehensive cooperation agreement between Hungary and Ukraine are ongoing, and the agreement should emphasise “the restoration of the rights of the Hungarian national community”.
Paczolay added that during negotiations, they had made it clear to the Ukrainian side that Ukraine’s intention to join NATO could not be part of the agreement, emphasising that their position on this matter had been repeatedly and clearly expressed without any changes.
He reiterated his earlier statement in Budapest that Ukraine’s accession to NATO “would lead to the outbreak of World War III”.
Background:
- President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Kyiv and Budapest were working on a bilateral agreement that would address security issues and Ukraine’s accession to NATO.
- Zelenskyy claimed that as part of this agreement, Ukraine would ask Hungary “not to block” its future accession to the Alliance.
- This week, the European Commission acknowledged in a new report on enlargement that Ukraine has fulfilled the 2022 requirements, including those for Hungarians.
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