US Ambassador Urges Budapest To Refrain From Blocking Kiev-NATO Cooperation

US Ambassador Urges Budapest to Refrain From Blocking Kiev-NATO Cooperation

US Ambassador to Hungary David B. Cornstein urged the Hungarian government on Thursday to refrain from blocking cooperation between NATO and Kiev amid the row between the neighboring countries.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 13th December, 2018) US Ambassador to Hungary David B. Cornstein urged the Hungarian government on Thursday to refrain from blocking cooperation between NATO and Kiev amid the row between the neighboring countries.

Budapest consistently blocks meetings of the NATO-Ukraine commission at the level of heads of state and government over its tensions with Kiev, prompted by Ukraine's education law.

"We recognize and respect Hungary's very important concerns about Ukraine's education policy, and raise these matters with the Government of Ukraine. We want both sides to come to a resolution soon ... We feel strongly, however, that as NATO allies the best way to promote reforms in Ukraine is by talking to Ukraine, not by blocking Ukrainian engagement with NATO," Cornstein said in his address to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Hungarian Parliament, as quoted in the embassy's statement.

The ambassador went on to call on Budapest to join Washington in "rejecting" Russia's energy projects such as Turkish Stream and Nord Stream 2.

Ukrainian-Hungarian relations deteriorated over Ukraine's 2017 education law, which restricted national minority children's right to study in their native languages. In September, tensions escalated further over reports that the Hungarian consulate in Beherove, a city located in Ukraine's western Zakarpattia region, near the Hungarian border, issued Hungarian passports for Ukrainian citizens. This was done in spite of the fact that Ukraine does not recognize dual citizenship. The move prompted Kiev to expel the Hungarian consul from the country, and Hungary responded in kind.