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Hungarian president László Sólyom was not allowed to step on Slovak soil on August 21, 2009, as he was about to attend the unveiling of a statue of St. Stephen, the first king of Hungary (1000–1038), in Komárno, Slovakia ((ハンガリー語:Révkomárom)), a town near the Hungarian border, where ethnic Hungarians form the majority of the population. The only official reason given for the denial was that the Hungarian president's visit might have constituted a security risk. Slovak prime minister Robert Fico had claimed that police would be unable to prevent Slovak extremist groups from disturbing the ceremony. In the two days preceding the visit, Slovakia had raised four other objections to the planned trip: * The ceremony might suggest a claim of Hungarian sovereignty over Slovak soil. * Slovakia was informed late about the visit. * The date of the visit fell one day after the Hungarian national holiday commemorating St. Stephen and coincided with the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. * Slovak leaders were not invited, nor did the president have plans to meet with them. Declaring the Hungarian head of state an unwelcome person (essentially ''persona non grata'', although this term was not used) created additional diplomatic conflict in already tense Hungary–Slovakia relations. ==Purpose of the planned visit== László Sólyom was invited〔("Szent István szobor és tér lesz Révkomáromban" ) (''St. Stephen statue and square to be unveiled in Komárno''), MTI Hungarian news agency, 12 August 2009. Retrieved 2010-03-15.〕 by a civic association, ''Szent István Szobor Bizottság'' ("St. Stephen Statue Committee"), to a statue unveiling ceremony in Komárno, Slovakia ((ハンガリー語:Révkomárom)). Both the Catholic and the Orthodox churches regard King Stephen as a saint for his role in converting the peoples of his kingdom to Christianity. Pope Gregory VII canonized him, his son and a bishop; August 20, 1083, the day of the canonization, is a public holiday in Hungary, regarded as the foundation of Hungarian statehood. In his ''Admonitions'' to his son, he declared, as cited in the planned speech of Sólyom for the unveiling: The Komárno statue was due to be unveiled on the day after this anniversary, that is, on August 21, 2009. The erection of the statue itself was criticized in February 2009 by the extremist and nationalist Slovak National Party (SNS),〔 one of the parties in Slovakia's governing coalition, because the town had not erected statues of Saints Cyril and Methodius, two Byzantine Greek missionaries among the Slavic peoples of Great Moravia and Pannonia. The statue was consequently placed only on the balcony of the Matica Slovenská, a cultural and scientific institution focusing on Slovakia-related topics. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「2009 ban of Hungarian President from Slovakia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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