Hungary has blocked a meeting of the Ukraine-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) commission at the level of defense ministers, which was scheduled to be held during the period of on February 14-15.
Ukraine's Ambassador to NATO Vadym Prystaiko announced this to the Ukrainian News Agency.
"This is not the first time that Hungary has blocked a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO commission at the ministerial level. Hungary has ... officially announced that it will block all events that are held at a level that is higher than the level of ambassadors, that is, my level. The victim this time is a meeting at the level of defense ministers, which, in our opinion, is absolutely unacceptable, given that the last time that ministers met with our minister in this format was in 2016," Prystaiko said.
The ambassador added that NATO members were also dissatisfied with the current situation.
"I know that 11 ambassadors of NATO member countries have sent to their Hungarian counterpart a letter stating that NATO is not 'a stage for playing such a drama.' The Venice Commission exists for this purpose, and we have used this mechanism, which has made recommendations that Ukraine has pledged to implement. We believed that the Hungarian side understood that this is the only authoritative body whose opinion is listened to," he said.
In addition, according to Prystaiko, this issue is expected to be raised by President Petro Poroshenko during his meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that next week (February 12-18).
As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has denied that agreement was reached on ways of resolving the issue of implementation of the language provisions of Ukraine's new Education Law during talks with Ukraine on February 7.
Hungary considers consultations between the Ukrainian authorities and the Hungarian community on the issue of implementation of the language provisions of the Education Law as an important step toward normalization of bilateral relations between the two countries.
The new Education Law entered into force on September 28.
Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova have expressed concern that the language provisions of the new law "On Education" violate the rights of national minorities in Ukraine.
Hungary has said that it intends to block any initiatives involving integration of Ukraine into the European Union because of the language provisions of the new Ukrainian education law.
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