BRATISLAVA, August 21, (WEBNOVINY)- Deputy Speaker of Parliament and Chairman of a ruling coalition member, the party MOST-HID, Bela Bugar decided not to attend the laying of wreaths at the statue of the first Hungarian King, St. Stephen, in Komarno, southern Slovakia on Sunday. The organizers of the ceremonial act are town fathers and the civic association Palatinus.
Bugar will not come as he does not want the event to be turned into a political matter. Bugar was to give speech at the event where the main speaker will be former Hungarian president Laszlo Solyom. Mayor of Komarno Tibor Bastrnak (Most-Hid) invited him to the event. Culture Minister Daniel Krajcer (SaS) has also received an invitation, but cannot attend the ceremony. He said that he does not want the ceremony in Komarno to be politicized.
Solyom who was the president of Hungary that time wanted to visit Slovakia to take part in a ceremony of unveiling the statue of St. Stephen in Komarno on the very same day as the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops in former Czechoslovakia 42 years ago However, the event finally took place without the Hungarian President. Slovak state officials believed that the aim of Solyom’s private visit to Komarno was to provoke conflict and the Foreign Ministry sent him a diplomatic note, denying him entry to Slovakia. The Hungarian president finally chose not to cross the border but he said he would return. Relations between Slovakia and Hungary worsened following this gesture. Pal Schmitt replaced Laszlo Solyom in the post of Hungarian head of state on August 5.
SITA