Bratislava - The Slovak Foreign Ministry on Wednesday accused Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom of having political motives behind a private visit to southern Slovakia. Speaking at press conference after a government meeting, Foreign Minister Jan Kubis said Slovakia objected to Solyom's actions in southern Slovakia, saying he had "abused a private visit for political purposes."
Solyom and his wife on Tuesday "privately" visited the bilingual Hungarian-Slovak region of Slovakia during a phase of increasing tensions between Slovakia and Hungary.
During his visit, Solyom inaugurated a monument to a Hungarian king and met politicians of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia.
In a press conference, he subsequently criticized the fact that the Slovak parliament had recently declared the so-called Benes decrees "inviolable."
The decrees provided for the expropriation and expatriation of Germans and Hungarians from Czechoslovakia after the Second World War to punish them collectively as collaborators of the German and Hungarian occupiers.
Prime Minister Robert Fico told the government press conference on Wednesday that the Hungarian president was "welcome in Slovakia any time."
However, the Slovak government would not "tolerate and accept someone crossing the national border to abuse a private visit to criticize the highest Slovak organs."
He also said the Slovak government would not allow the Hungarian president "to behave in southern Slovakia as if he was in northern Hungary."
After all, Fico said, he was "the president of Hungary and not the president of (Hungarian speaking) citizens of Slovakia."
