Hungary forbids EU weapon delivery to Ukraine across its territory

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.

"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.

The EU pledged on Sunday to provide 450-million-euro (504 million U.S. dollars)-worth of lethal weapons to Ukraine.