“Ukraine is the victim; Russia is the brutal aggressor,” Péter Magyar declared on the second day of the NATO summit in Ankara. The Prime Minister stated that Hungary will continue to provide humanitarian aid to Ukraine but will not send troops or arms shipments; nevertheless, there is no question that Ukraine has every right to defend its territorial integrity.
During the summit, the head of the Hungarian government briefly spoke with the Ukrainian president, and they agreed to hold a bilateral meeting soon. “I spoke with President Zelensky yesterday, and we agreed to meet sometime in the near future either in Budapest or Kyiv, and then travel together to Transcarpathia, to Berehove,” Péter Magyar said in a Facebook video posted ahead of the plenary session on the second day of the NATO summit in Ankara.
A meeting between the two leaders has been in the works ever since Hungary and Ukraine signed an agreement on the protection of the rights of the Hungarian ethnic minority in Transcarpathia, which ensures the continued provision of Hungarian-language education and the official use of Hungarian national symbols and the Hungarian language in the parts of Transcarpathia inhabited by the Hungarian community.
The location and date of this meeting remain to be determined—Magyar has suggested meeting in Berehove, Western Ukraine (which has a substantial Hungarian population), a proposal to which the Ukrainian side has not objected to.
Similarly to the leaders of other NATO member states, the Hungarian Prime Minister also addressed the future of the military alliance ahead of the summit. Magyar emphasized that Hungary is a reliable NATO ally committed to fulfilling its obligations to the military alliance, including increasing its defense budget to 5 percent of its GDP by 2035.
This is the first time that Magyar is representing Hungary at the NATO summit as head of government. In his video message, he also shared that he had held several bilateral meetings and brief discussions, including with the head of government of Montenegro. “We hope that this Western Balkan country, with a population of 600,000, will be able to join the European Union as early as next year,” the PM said, adding that Hungary—which supports EU enlargement in the Western Balkans—has significant business investments in the region.
The article has been updated to include the comments PM Magyar shared in a video message.
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