Hungary will retaliate in kind if Ukraine expels consul, says foreign minister

Hungary will retaliate in kind if Ukraine expels one of its consuls, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Sunday but voiced hope that the two countries can avoid such a scenario.

Speaking to MTI at the airport before leaving for New York for next week’s session of the United Nations General Assembly, Szijjártó noted that he will sit down with his Ukrainian counterpart, Pavlo Klimkin, on Tuesday to discuss what he called “the new momentum behind anti-Hungarian agitation in Ukraine”.

Earlier this week, Klimkin said he is not ruling out expelling the Hungarian consul serving in Berehove (Beregszász) from the country after hidden camera footage showing Ukrainian citizens taking Hungarian citizenship oaths at the consulate appeared on YouTube. Szijjártó reacted by condemning what he called “the Ukrainian leadership’s attempt to intimidate the ethnic Hungarian community in Transcarpathia (Kárpátalja)”.

Ukraine is preparing to hold presidential and parliamentary elections and the incumbent president’s approval rating is “quite modest”, Szijjártó said.

“Therefore, the powers that be have turned to the well-known Hungarian hating to boost their chances,” the minister insisted.

Szijjártó said this has “taken on multiple forms”.

The Ukrainian secret service has started looking into certain members of the ethnic Hungarian community and there is now a website calling for action against dual Hungarian-Ukrainian citizens (read more HERE),

he said. Harassment against Hungarian diplomats is getting more and more common and there have been many cases of people connected to foundations taking part in economic development schemes funded by the Hungarian government getting “called in for questioning”, Szijjártó added.