Kiev does not consider the recent incident with a Ukrainian flag in the Slovak parliament as adversarial but has still filed a protest and demands an apology, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Wednesday.
According to media reports, two Slovak lawmakers Peter Krupa and Andrej Medvecky blocked the pulpit in the parliament and unfurled the Slovak flag. Then, lawmakers from a different party approached the pulpit and displayed an upside-down Ukrainian flag. In response, Medvecky threw water on both the Ukrainian flag and his opponents.
"This was not a deliberate anti-Ukraine stunt. This was an incident within a wider context of the struggle between the authorities and opposition in the parliament, not on the issue of Ukraine. However, any disrespect toward Ukraine's state symbols is absolutely unacceptable," Kuleba said at a press conference, adding that upon learning about the incident he "ordered the Ukrainian embassy in Slovakia to issue a protest as is done in such cases and demand apologies from the person who did it."
At the same time, the minister stressed that Ukraine and Slovakia enjoy a "wonderful relationship," which will not be undermined by the aforementioned incident.
Earlier in the week, Slovak Foreign Ministry Ivan Korcok joined his Austrian and Czech counterparts for a two-day visit to Ukraine. (ANI/Sputnik)
( With inputs from ANI )
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor