US entry ban – Leftist opposition demands information

Budapest, October 18 (MTI) – Jozsef Tobias, the head of the opposition Socialists, expects the prime minister to clarify in parliament circumstances of the United States’ recent ban on Hungarian officials to enter the country.

Tobias told a press conference on Saturday that PM Viktor Orban, “as soon as he learns whom the ban affects, should call on those (officials) to resign”.

Each minister and other senior officials should also make clear if they are affected by the ban, Tobias said.

Agnes Vadai, deputy leader of the Democratic Coalition (DK), said she would contact the foreign ministry on Monday and ask “what information the government had previously received signalling that the US would ban persons around the cabinet from the States”.

DK wants to see the minutes of relevant talks with the US, Vadai said. She insisted that “voters have the right to know who is involved in the corruption scandal”.

The US embassy in Budapest has so far not revealed the names of persons affected by US entry restrictions and has not indicated why the ban was imposed, Peter Szijjarto, the foreign minister, told group leaders of the parliamentary parties on Saturday morning. Szijjarto said the government was fully in agreement with the opposition because they all want full publicity on the matter.

Tobias added that US-Hungarian ties have come to “the most contradictory and most dangerous phase” in the past 25 years.

The US embassy earlier said that “certain Hungarian private individuals” have been found to be ineligible for entry to the US because “credible information is available showing that these persons participated or profited from corruption activities.”

At a roundtable on Friday, Andre Goodfriend, the US embassy’s charge d’affaires, said it was Hungarian government officials who were affected by the ban. In an interview to public television M1 he said members of government were implicated in corruption, according to the US government.

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