Hungary recalls Dutch envoy in diplomatic spat

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY: Budapest has recalled its ambassador in The Hague after the Dutch envoy to Hungary accused Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government of using tactics similar to terrorists, state media reported Friday.

"Terrorists create enemies in the same fashion as the Hungarian government," Dutch ambassador Gajus Scheltema told Hungarian political weekly 168 Ora on Thursday.



Like extremists who blindly carry out attacks, Orban fails to draw dinstinctions in the migrant crisis by painting all asylum seekers as potential "terrorists", Scheltema said, according to the interview published in Hungarian.

The remarks drew the wrath of Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto who said Friday he had asked the Dutch government for an explanation for "these baseless insults".

"We will not accept an explanation behind closed doors," he said.



At the height of the migrant crisis in 2015, more than 400,000 people, many fleeing the Syrian civil war, passed through European Union member Hungary on their way to western and northern Europe.

Right-wing leader Orban, a strong admirer of US President Donald Trump, has repeatedly clashed with Brussels over his hard line on immigration, which he describes as the "Trojan horse of terrorism".