RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE  14 December 1999

HUNGARY, SLOVAKIA PLEASED WITH COOPERATION. Visiting Slovak
Foreign Minister Eduard Kukan and his Hungarian counterpart,
Janos Martonyi, said in Budapest on 13 December that there
has been a major improvement in Hungarian-Slovak relations.
Kukan thanked Hungary for supporting Slovakia's EuroAtlantic
integration and called for increased cooperation. He said the
ongoing dispute over the joint Gabcikovo-Nagymaros hydropower
plant is a legal issue, not a political one. Kukan said that
talks will resume in the near future, but he admitted that
settling the dispute will be a "very difficult and lengthy"
process. MSZ

HUNGARY REPORTS LOWER CRIME RATE. Jozser Szajer,
parliamentary group leader of the major coalition Federation
of Young Democrats-Hungarian Civic Party, told the parliament
on 13 December that the number of crimes in Hungary dropped
by 20 percent in the first 10 months of 1999 compared with
the same period last year. The corresponding figure for
Budapest was a 47.8 percent decline. Interior Minister Sandor
Pinter attributed the results to tougher legislation and firm
action taken by the police. Szajer noted, however, that drug-
related crimes rose by 38 percent owing to more stringent
regulations. MSZ

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