Hungary has no territorial claims even if its neighbours often insist on the opposite, Foreign Minister János Martonyi said on Thursday in an interview published by Krónika, a Hungarian-language daily published in Cluj, Romania.

Minister Martonyi claimed that the past three years had witnessed some progress of varying degrees in Hungary's relations with its neighbours. Hungarian-Romanian ties during the current government's first two years in office were the best they had ever been, but the situation has changed over the past year, he added.

When asked about the possible reasons for anti-Hungarian sentiments, Minister Martonyi said that a section of the political elite and general public in neighbouring countries had failed to absorb the idea that the territories gained after World War I were accompanied by large communities that they had to accept as ethnic Hungarian communities, irrespective of their size, and integrate them into their states.

The Hungarian Foreign Minister stressed that Hungary had no territorial claims even if its neighbours insisted that there were. The basis for the historical compromise is that „we acknowledge their territorial gains, while they acknowledge the Hungarian minorities living in their territory.” It is regrettable that "concerns" over Hungarian communities are sometimes used for political purposes, he added.

Minister Martonyi said that during his recent visit to Bucharest he had felt the need to convince Prime Minister Victor Ponta that his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orbán and the Fidesz party are not enemies of Romania. "Since then, we have again been involved in quarrels about who said what about the other side," he said, adding this was "annoying".

When asked about the chances for the autonomy of Hungarians in Transylvania, János Martonyi responded that international law did not prescribe any clear-cut obligations with respect to the various forms of ethnic autonomy, but each government should take into account if an ethnic community voices its demand for autonomy in a democratic manner.

„We can carry on legal debates,” – the Hungarian Foreign Minister declared – „but the point is that an ethnic minority should feel safe in its homeland, and it should not be attacked, and the negative sentiments related to that minority should not be exploited for political purposes.” He added that the task of Hungarian foreign policy has been and will always be to support the rational and democratic demands of Hungarian minorities abroad.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs)