September 21, 2007
Slovak president defends decision on Benes decrees
Budapest, September 21 (MTI) - Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic on Friday called the Slovak Parliament's recent resolution re-affirming the inviolability of the post-WWII Benes Decrees as a reaction to actions by some Hungarian politicians and Slovakia's ethnic Hungarian leaders.
Hungarian governing and opposition parties expressed shock over Thursday's Slovak decision on the decrees, passed immediately after World War II as punishment for ethnic Germans and Hungarians living in Czechoslovakia. Based on the decrees, in addition to property confiscation, over 100,000 ethnic Hungarians were deported or sent to labour camps. They have never received compensation.
Addressing a press conference after a Visegrad Four summit meeting in Keszthely, Gasparovic said, "We, in Slovakia, consider the Benes decrees a consequence of the Second World War." The Slovak president added that the decrees had been approved by the great powers at the time they were adopted.
Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom said he would comment on the issue after a bilateral consultation with Gasparovic.
Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus confirmed that the Czech Parliament had taken a similar decision in 2002.