Hungary’s FM Peter Szijjarto has warned Kiev against expelling its consul, vowing it would retaliate “immediately” if it did. Hungary and Ukraine are locked in a bitter diplomatic row over Kiev’s ‘forced Ukrainization’ policies.

Budapest will not voluntarily recall its consul to the town of Beregovo, located in western Ukraine, Szijjarto said on Wednesday, after talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow. And if Kiev decides to forcefully expel the diplomat, Budapest will “immediately” send a Ukrainian Consul packing, Hungary’s top diplomat warned.

“The Hungarian Consul in Beregovo did nothing wrong, nothing which amounts to a violation of Hungarian, Ukrainian or international law,” Szijjarto insisted.

Back in September, Ukrainian media outlets circulated a video purportedly showing Hungarian diplomatic workers handing out Hungarian passports to Ukrainian citizens, while urging them to keep silent about it. The video was allegedly shot at Hungary’s consulate in the town of Beregovo, located in Ukraine’s Trans-Carpathian region and inhabited predominantly by ethnic Hungarians.

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The video prompted an angry reaction in Kiev, with Ukraine’s FM Pavel Klimkin urging Hungary to recall the Consul. If the demand is not met, Kiev will expel the diplomat on Thursday, Klimkin warned.

Relations between Hungary and Ukraine deteriorated rapidly following adoption by Kiev authorities of a new education law last September. The legislation effectively outlaws education in minority languages, establishing the primacy of the Ukrainian language. Starting this fall, only children in grades 1-4 are allowed to get education in their native tongues in Ukraine and, by 2020, even that will no longer be legal.

As the controversial law was adopted, Budapest vowed to block all initiatives to integrate Ukraine into the European Union. Other neighbors of Ukraine, including Russia, have also condemned the legislation as a form of minorities’ persecution. Kiev’s forced Ukrainization policy still remains a major concern for Moscow, according to Foreign Minister Lavrov.

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“[Russia and Hungary] have shared concerns over the Ukrainization of the education policy, pursued by the Kiev authorities, which violates the rights of ethnic minorities, primarily their language rights,” Lavrov said during a press conference, adding that such a policy violates “those obligations which Ukraine has taken under international conventions.”

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