Ukraine slams Viktor Orban for wearing controversial scarf

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Ukraine has slammed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban after a video of him surfaced wearing a scarf that shows parts of Ukraine as Hungary, a news report claimed. The Ukraine government has demanded an apology from Mr Orban for depicting the wrong history.

The video was recorded as the Hungarian PM attended a football match.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko said on Tuesday Kyiv would summon Hungary’s ambassador “who will be informed of the unacceptability of Viktor Orban’s act”.

Mr Nikolenko wrote on Facebook: “The promotion of revisionism ideas in Hungary does not contribute to the development of Ukrainian-Hungarian relations and does not comply with the principles of European policy.

“We are waiting for an official apology from the Hungarian side and a refutation of the encroachments on the territorial integrity of Ukraine.”

Ukrainian media showed images of Orban meeting a Hungarian footballer wearing a scarf which the outlet Ukrainska Pravda reported depicted a map of “Greater Hungary” including territory that is now part of the neighbouring states of Ukraine, Austria, Slovakia, Romania, Croatia and Serbia.

Romania’s foreign ministry also responded angrily, saying it had submitted to the Hungarian ambassador in Bucharest its “firm disapproval of the gesture”.

In a statement released on Monday, the foreign ministry said: “Any revisionist manifestation, no matter what form it takes, is unacceptable, against current realities and common commitments.”

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Orban did not directly address the controversy over the scarf.

He said: “Soccer is not politics.

“Do not read things into it that are not there.

“The Hungarian national team belongs to all Hungarians, wherever they live!”

This is not the first time that the two countries clashed.

Mr Orban has regularly provoked controversies with neighbouring countries by referring to Hungary’s pre-first world war territory.

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The two countries have repeatedly butted heads in recent years over what Hungary said were curbs on the right of ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine to use their native tongue, especially in education, after Ukraine passed a law in 2017 restricting the use of minority languages in schools.

Around two million ethnic Hungarians live in the neighbouring countries, including 1.2 million in Romania and 150,000 in Ukraine.

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