The Hungarian government will insist that the European Union take a common position on the “violent military mobilization in Ukraine, which led to the beating to death of a Hungarian“, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said today in Budapest, quoted by the national news agency MTI, BTA reported.
At a press conference, Szijjártó described as shocking that the international community “looks away while the brutal and violent mobilization in Ukraine“ is being revealed”. "If even a tenth of what is happening there had happened elsewhere, the EU would have rushed to condemn it," the minister said.
Szijjártó insisted that the mobilization in Ukraine often amounted to a "hunt for men." "We have seen videos showing how untrained people, often both incompetent and unfit for service, are kidnapped in front of their own families and their young children and forced to serve on the front," the Hungarian foreign minister said.
"They are beating people to death - people who don't want to go to war, don't want to be part of this senseless slaughter. This is unacceptable. This is happening in the heart of Europe, and European politicians are pretending that nothing is happening,“ he said.
Szijjártó said he would raise the issue during tomorrow's Council of Foreign Ministers of the EU countries and called on Brussels to say “whether it considers the brutal and violent mobilization acceptable“.
He said he considered what was happening in Ukraine “contrary to human rights, international law and basic human values“.
“It is natural that we stand behind the Hungarian victims and their families. We are in constant contact with their families and will do everything in our power, as always, to help them“, the minister added.
Regarding the issue of US arms supplies to Ukraine, Szijjártó said that “no one has done more for peace than President Donald Trump, whose efforts could have been much more successful if European and Ukrainian leaders had not hindered them.“
At the same time, he said that the fact that the top diplomats of the US and Russia spoke “for almost an hour on the phone last week“ was “a good sign“. “I sincerely hope that the peace efforts will continue. Peace is in the interest of all of us“, Szijjártó concluded.
As BTA has already reported, Szijjártó summoned the Ukrainian ambassador to the country after employees of the Ukrainian agency responsible for mobilization beat a Hungarian in the Transcarpathian region bordering Hungary, who later died of his wounds.
According to various estimates, about 150,000 ethnic Hungarians live in the border areas of the region.