Minister of State Zsolt Németh welcomed the agreement between Serbia and Kosovo concluded during his visit in Romania.

Addressing a delegates' assembly of the Transylvanian Hungarian People's Party (EMNP) in Cluj (Kolozsvár), Zsolt Németh said that the agreement closed a difficult historical period and contained provisions for autonomy, which he said should also inspire Hungarians.

The Hungarian Minister of State said that the former "honeymoon" in Romanian-Hungarian relations had been replaced by an era of challenges, marked by tensions over the future of the Hungarian faculty of the Targu Mures (Marosvásárhely) Medical University, the issue of restitution, controversy over the use of the Szekler flag and plans for a regional-administrative reform.

Zsolt Németh stressed that Hungarians in Transylvania need to be persistent and must join forces in order to accomplish their goals. He added that during the course of restructuring the regions it was difficult to ignore the preference of the entire Hungarian minority with respect to the administrative borders of the regions in Romania.  

Hungary will help Transylvania's ethnic Hungarian community to achieve its goals with every possible means, Zsolt Németh said.  The Hungarian Minister of State claimed that Hungary and Romania should come to agreements in the 1989 spirit of Timisoara (Temesvár), when Hungarian and Romanian citizens held hands in a line to protect Reverend László Tőkés, who was persecuted by the Romanian authorities.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs)