NID: HUNGARY: TENSION WITH ORTHODOX NEIGHBORS GROWING

Document Type: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
06826747
Release Decision: 
RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
U
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
November 26, 2019
Document Release Date: 
December 10, 2019
Sequence Number: 
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
July 13, 1989
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PDF icon NID HUNGARY TENSION WIT[15743517].pdf31.33 KB
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Approved for Release: 2019/10/29 C06826747 HUNGARY: Tension With Orthodox Neighbors Growing Hungary's reform-oriented leaders find the attitudes of the orthodox regimes in Romania and Czechoslovakia increasingly threatening and are reassessing Hungarian national security interests. Budapest believes Prague and Bucharest have jointly targeted their security services against Hungary Moreover Romanian officials warned the Hungarians an armed clash could not be excluded if Budapest continues to press Bucharest about its treatment of the ethnic Hungarian minority in Romania. Czechoslovakia and Romania stridently denounced the reburial of Imre Nagy, the executed leader of the 1956 revolution, accusing Budapest of counterrevolutionary tendencies. In reaction, Hungary reportedly asked the West German Social Democratic Party to insert into a bipartisan Bundestag resolution on Hungary a clause warning against destabilization from abroad Comment: Reformers in Budapest apparently have concluded that the greatest threat to Hungary is not from NATO but from Warsaw Pact allies threatened by its liberalization and by its increasingly vocal defense of Hungarian minorities abroad. Moscow has declined to involve itself in these squabbles, and Hungary probably will turn more often to the West for support. Romania's threat to use arms is probably a ploy to press Budapest to case its oubli criticism; an armed clash is unlikely. 2 TCS 2861/89 13 July 1989 Approved for Release: 2019/10/29 C06826747