According to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba, Hungary dealt a blow to Hungarian-Ukrainian relations by signing the agreement with Gazprom and excluding the Ukrainian gas pipeline from the Russian gas transportation system; according to the head of the ministry, Ukraine will give an appropriate response to this.
Kuleba spoke about this in the program "Freedom of Speech" on ICTV Ukrainian television on Monday night, and his statement was quoted by Ukrainian news agencies the next morning.
"We have a country here, Hungary, which is a member of the European Union and NATO, and it also has special relations with Russia, and it dealt a blow to Ukrainian-Hungarian relations by excluding the Ukrainian gas pipeline from the Russian gas delivery scheme. This is a blow, and we will respond accordingly, because there can be no regrets and no sympathy," said Dmitro Kuleba.
According to the head of the department, however, the planned meeting of the Ukrainian-Hungarian Intergovernmental Economic Joint Committee, which was to be held under the co-chairing of the two foreign ministers on September 29-30, was "cancelled" even before the Russian-Ukrainian gas agreement was signed.
(The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's statement on Monday referred to the "adjournment" of the meeting).
"We knew that the Russian delegation would fly there (to Budapest) and sign the agreement. And they, by signing this agreement, were already aware of our position. This will not only be a political step, it will be the cancellation of the meeting of the commission, which is the main body of bilateral cooperation. We are also taking other steps to protect Ukraine's national interests in this situation," Kuleba emphasized, without going into further details.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to the verbal provocation today.
Péter Szijjártó invited the Ukrainian ambassador and wrote the following on his social media page: "We consider it a violation of our sovereignty that Ukraine wants to prevent the safe supply of gas to Hungary, we ask this for ourselves and we invited the Ukrainian ambassador to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade on Tuesday."
In his post, Péter Szijjártó reminded that on Monday the contract guaranteeing the gas supply of Hungary for the next fifteen years was signed with Gazprom. "This is a great success, because on the one hand, in today's uncertain world, everything that ensures predictability has great value, and on the other hand, we agreed on a price formula that ensures the long-term maintenance of the results of the overhead reduction - noted the minister.
He added that he is deeply outraged by the Ukrainian government's decision to challenge the contract at the European Commission. The minister made it clear in his post: the Ukrainians have nothing to do with what we agree with whom. We consider it a serious violation of our sovereignty and national security interests that they want to prevent the safe supply of gas to our country, the heating of Hungarian people's homes and the operation of industry, he added. According to Péter Szijjártó, the Ukrainian half-step is unfriendly, after all the support Ukraine has received from Hungary so far - such as ventilators, medical equipment, care for soldiers, vacations for children, financing of investments.
Source: MTI/Demokrata
