Romanian ministry summons envoy over remarks on ties

Bucharest, August 10 (MTI) – The Romanian foreign ministry has summoned a Hungarian embassy official over remarks the ambassador made about Hungarian-Romanian relations in an interview to a Romanian daily.

Romania expressed disagreement over Ambassador Botond Zakonyi’s general description of bilateral relations between their countries.

Karoly Zoltan Nagy, the embassy’s next-in-command, was summoned as the ambassador himself was on holiday.

Zakonyi said in the interview published in the right-leaning opposition daily Romania libera on Monday that bilateral relations depended in part on infrastructure cooperation, but in this area the Romanian side “fails to demonstrate sufficient goodwill”. Zakonyi mentioned the Szeged-Arad gas pipeline and its planned upgrade, which would enable bi-directional gas supplies.

Currently the gas goes in the direction of Romania only.

Zakonyi said Romanian authorities should create the conditions for the upgrade to go ahead.

An important project to link ten roads either side of the border has also stalled, Zakonyi said, adding that it appeared that Romania is taking “retrograde steps”.

The Romanian foreign ministry said in a statement that Hungary has failed to respect the general framework of bilateral cooperation or its “political-legal basis, the Hungarian-Romanian basic treaty and a 2002 agreement on strategic partnership”.

It added that comments by Zakonyi concerning Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta were “disrespectful”.

Romania, it said, has linked its A1 motorway with Hungary’s M43, a fact that Zakonyi neglected to mention. The two sides are cooperating closely on the Arad-Szeged pipeline, the statement added.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters