Ukrainian Foreign Ministry: Since 2017, Hungary has been blocking for Kyiv the holding of meetings of the Ukraine-NATO Commission above the level of ambassadors
It turns out that the strained relations between Budapest and Kyiv did not develop yesterday. Since 2017, Hungary has been vetoing the participation of representatives of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry in all meetings within the framework of the work of the Ukraine-NATO Commission above the level of ambassadors. It was this year that Ukraine adopted the law “On Education”, according to which schools and higher educational institutions should gradually switch to full teaching in the Ukrainian language. The law, which allows the study of other languages, except the official one, only as an additional discipline, was called "shameful" in Hungary.
So this time, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba is forced to meet with his colleagues from the countries of the alliance at the summit in Bucharest not within the framework of the Commission, but informally. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has to resort to certain tricks in order to bypass the Hungarian veto. The talks between the Ukrainian diplomat and the rest of the ministers will be held at a separate dinner, not during the official session.
Earlier, the Financial Times reported that Budapest does not intend to change its principled position regarding the ban on participation in official negotiations of the Ukrainian Foreign Minister. Later, this information was confirmed to journalists by the representative of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Oleg Nikolenko:
And this despite the fact that the meeting itself is devoted to discussing further assistance to Kyiv from the states of the North Atlantic Alliance. The next round of talks between the foreign ministers of the alliance countries within the framework of the Ukraine-NATO Commission is taking place on November 29-30 in Bucharest.
Earlier, Kuleba, in an interview with Politico, said that he intends not only to ask the allies for new weapons, but also insists on assistance in establishing its production directly in Ukraine. In turn, Stoltenberg announced that the main topic of discussion at the summit of foreign ministers would be support for the restoration of the energy infrastructure in the country, which suffered enormous destruction as a result of Russian missile strikes. It turns out that even in its requests, Kyiv was not fully heard and unconditionally supported by the allies.
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