Volker: Hungary makes mistake by blocking NATO-Ukraine meetings

“I think that Hungary is making a mistake by using NATO as a tool to try to put pressure on this issue. Ukraine faces important external challenges — the attack, the invasion, and the occupation by Russia. That is something that should be of concern to every NATO ally, including Hungary. And blocking high-level meetings between NATO and Ukraine, I believe, is a mistake,” Volker said during a video conference on Tuesday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

He noted that no progress had been made so far in that issue.

“I do hope that with the election of President Zelensky, and let me remind that he is a native Russian language speaker who also speaks Ukrainian, there needs to be an agreement between Hungary and Ukraine on how to deal with the question of national minorities, the rights of those minorities to speak and have the education in their own language and at the same time to ensure that the citizen of Ukraine, all of them, also learn and use Ukrainian as part of their communication in the official language in the country,” the U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations added.

As reported, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó called the language law, which was passed by the Parliament of Ukraine on April 25, “unacceptable.”

The Hungarian government warned NATO that it would further block the meetings of the NATO-Ukraine Commission in response to the Parliament’s adoption of the language law.

The Law of Ukraine “On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as a State Language” takes into account the recommendations of the Venice Commission regarding the consideration of the interests of national minorities in accordance with the international obligations of Ukraine.

ol