The United States on Thursday denounced remarks made recently by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban as inexcusable.
The nationalist leader had warned in a speech about the emergence of “mixed race peoples”.
In response to his remarks, US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price read to journalists a statement by the US envoy against anti-Semitism, Deborah Lipstadt, who commented that Orban’s words were “inexcusable”.
Ms. Lipstadt said she was "deeply alarmed" by his "use of rhetoric that clearly evokes Nazi racial ideology." Decades "after the end of the Holocaust, it is inexcusable for a leader to make light of Nazi mass murder," she said.
Price said Orban’s remarks were "not reflective of the shared values that tether the United States to Hungary, that serve as a foundation for the relationship between our two peoples, and that serve as a basis for the relationship between the United States and our other allies.”
Speaking on Saturday at a gathering in the Romanian region of Transylvania, home to Romania's Hungarian minority, the ultra-conservative Orban had warned against “miscegenation” with non-Europeans, and rejected a “multi-ethnic” society.
His remarks sparked a storm of criticism both at home and abroad.
During a visit to Austria on Thursday, Orban defended his statements as cultural views that should be seen in their Hungarian context.
“In Hungary, these expressions and phrases represent a cultural, civilized point of view,” he said.
