RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol 3, No. 14, 21 January 1999

SLOVAKIA ADAMANT ON URGENCY OF NATO ACCESSION. Defense
Minister Pavol Kanis on 20 January told his Austrian
counterpart, Werner Fasslabend, that Bratislava will
have "to react actively" to the admission of the Czech
Republic, Hungary, and Poland into NATO because that
step "will create problems in relations between
countries that have joined the alliance and those that
have not done so," CTK reported. Speaking before leaving
on a visit to the U.S, Foreign Minister Eduard Kukan
told journalists the same day that the purpose of his
visit is to discuss not Slovak-U.S. relations but
Slovakia's integration into NATO. He said Slovak
diplomats consider NATO membership "a matter of months,
not years." MS

BUDAPEST TO CHANGE STRATEGY IN "HUNGARIAN-HUNGARIAN"
RELATIONS? Zsolt Nemeth, Foreign Ministry political
state secretary, told journalists in Uzhorod, western
Ukraine, on 20 January that Hungary intends to invite to
the forthcoming "Hungarian-Hungarian summit" only those
ethnic Hungarian parties from neighboring countries that
are represented in the respective countries'
parliaments. Bela Bugar, chairman of the Hungarian
Coalition Party of Slovakia, responded by saying that a
party's legitimacy should not be linked to parliamentary
representation, since many ethnic parties lack the
necessary number of supporters to ensure their
parliamentary representation. MSZ


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