Slovakia warns of worsening relations after Gyurcsany resignation

Slovakia warns of worsening relations after Gyurcsany resignation Prague - Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico warned Saturday that relations with neighbouring Hungary may further deteriorate with Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany's planned resignation.

Fico said that a victory by the "anti-Slovak" right-wing Fidesz party in a potential early general election raised worries in Slovakia.

"It would extremely complicate Slovak-Hungarian relations and we would have to react to that," he told reporters while visiting a Prague-based congress of the opposition Czech Social Democrats.

Opposition leader Fidesz is confidently leading in the polls, while the ratings of Gyurcsany's Socialists have plunged following a set of belt-tightening economic measures.

Hungary had to ask the International Monetary Fund and the European Union for aid to rescue the crumbling economy.

Slovak-Hungarian relations have been already chilly under Gyurcsany's rule.

They deteriorated since the summer of 2006 when Fico brought to his three-party center-left government the Slovak National Party led by Jan Slota, a xenophobic politician who has stirred anti-Hungarian sentiments.

Relations further soured in November, after Slovak police clashed with Hungarian fans at a football game in Hungarian-inhabited southern Slovakia.

High-profile meetings between Slovak and Hungarian officials have so far failed to bring about a thaw and ease nationalist tensions.

Slovakia and Hungary are historical foes. Slovakia had been part of Hungary until the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian empire after World War I, in which Budapest lost more than two thirds of its territory under the so-called Treaty of Trianon.

Ethnic Hungarians comprise about one tenth of Slovakia's population estimated at 5.4 million. (dpa)

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