Hungary's Magyar proposes meeting with Zelenskiy on minority rights

Hungarian election winner Peter Magyar has proposed a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in western Ukraine to discuss minorityrights of ethnic Hungarians in the region, Magyar said in a Facebook post on Tuesday.



Centre-right leader Magyar ousted nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban after 16 years in power at an April 12 election, winning a constitutional majority that will allow him to roll back Orban's contested rule-of-law reforms.



While Magyar does not share Orban's overt hostility towards Ukraine, he also opposes fast-track European Union accession for Kyiv and says its treatment of ethnic Hungarians in western Ukraine will be key to rebuilding ties.



"The goal of the meeting is to help the situation of Hungarians in Transcarpathia so that they can stay in their homeland," Magyar said after talks with Zoltan Babjak, the mayor of Berehove, a Ukrainian town near the border with Hungary where ethnic Hungarians constitute a majority.