The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) transmits that it „firmly disapproves of the comments of the president of the Foreign Policy Commission of the Hungarian Parliament published on Facebook on Monday regarding Romania’s alleged restriction of the right to hoist the flag of the so-called Szeklerland”, according to Agerpres.

In this context, the Hungarian ambassador in Bucharest was summoned, on Tuesday, by order of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bogdan Aurescu, to the headquarters of the Romanian MAE, in order to communicate the position of the Romanian side.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs highlights, in this context, the fact that „the legal order in Romania enshrines the right of persons belonging to all 20 national minorities to use their specific symbols in private, as well as in public, within specific cultural and religious manifestations”.

„Regarding the sign of the so-called Szeklerland, in Romania there is no administrative-territorial unit with this name and therefore no right to any specific official sign,” MAE states.

At the same time, the Romanian ministry representatives point out, „any administrative-territorial authority in Romania has the right to establish their own signs, which must be representative of the entire population resident in that administrative-territorial unit”.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs „insistently reiterates the call for restraint in public statements and reminds the expectation of the Romanian side that the Hungarian officials act with responsibility in the logic of the strategic relationship between the two states, the Basic Political Treaty of 1996 and in the desire to strengthen bilateral cooperation in all areas of interest, for the benefit of all Romanian and Hungarian citizens regardless of ethnicity”.

Agerpres