Photo taken on Jan. 4, 2022 shows a decoration at the headquarters of the Council of the European Union (EU) marking France's hold of the half-year rotating presidency of the EU Council, in Brussels, Belgium.(Xinhua/Zhang Cheng)
The EU pledged on Sunday to provide 450-million-euro (504 million U.S. dollars)-worth of lethal weapons to Ukraine.
BUDAPEST, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Hungary will not allow deliveries of weapons destined to Ukraine across its territory, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto said on Monday.
At a meeting of European Union (EU) foreign ministers on Sunday, Hungary agreed to activate the so-called European Peace Facility, empowering the EU to deliver weapons to Ukraine, Szijjarto recalled.
"We Hungarians, although we gave our consent for this decision...we made our position very clear that Hungary is not sending troops to Ukraine and Hungary is not sending weapons to Ukraine because we do not want to get involved in this war," he said in a speech posted on his personal Facebook page.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban inspects a border station with Ukraine in east Hungary, Feb. 26, 2022. (Photo by Attila Volgyi/Xinhua)
"Today we have made another decision that we will not allow deliveries of lethal weapons to transit the territory of Hungary," he declared, adding that the decision was made in order to guarantee the security of Hungary and the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia.
"The reason for making this decision is that such deliveries might become targets of hostile military action, and I want to underline again that we have to ensure the security of Hungary and the Hungarian people. We have to ensure that we are not getting involved in that war," he concluded.
Photo taken on Feb. 27, 2022 shows the empty street in the early morning in Kiev, capital of Ukraine. (Xinhua/Li Dongxu)
The EU pledged on Sunday to provide 450-million-euro (504 million U.S. dollars)-worth of lethal weapons to Ukraine.■
