Hungary and Ukraine have not agreed on a place and time for a meeting between Magyar and Zelensky

Hungary and Ukraine have not yet determined the place and time of the proposed meeting between Prime Minister Péter Magyar and Volodymyr Zelensky.

This was reported by the press service of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry.

Earlier, Magyar had spoken of the possibility of a meeting the following week, and media reports suggested that Zelensky’s visit to Hungary would take place on June 8. However, the country’s foreign policy ministry denied that any final agreement had been reached.

“Negotiations on the place and time are ongoing; there was no final agreement to schedule them for Monday. The negotiations on the meeting are proceeding smoothly through diplomatic channels,” the online outlet HVG quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying.

On June 2, Magyar expressed his readiness to meet with Zelensky on the condition that the two countries reach an agreement on restoring the rights of the Hungarian national minority in Zakarpattia. On June 3, such an agreement was reached, allowing Hungary to lift its veto on the start of negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.

Magyar also stated that he would like to hold the meeting in the Ukrainian city of Berehove in the Zakarpattia region, where ethnic Hungarians live. In his view, the choice of this location would carry important symbolic significance.

The issue of the rights of the Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia has long been a source of disagreement between the two countries. The previous Hungarian government led by Viktor Orbán had also demanded for years that Kyiv restore these rights, warning that otherwise it would block Ukraine’s accession to the EU. Budapest repeatedly pointed out that since 2015, Zakarpattian Hungarians had been stripped of a number of rights, including the right to use their native language in the spheres of culture and education.