Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Friday Budapest is keen to mend ties with its eastern neighbour Ukraine after a row over a controversial language law. Szijjarto was paying his first visit to Kiev after former comedian Volodymyr Zelensky was elected president last year. "The Hungarian government is interested in renewing good neighbourly relations with Ukraine," he said during a joint press conference with Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Dmytro Kuleba. A conflict between the two countries erupted in 2017 when Kiev adopted a law that EU and NATO member Hungary says restricts the rights of Ukraine's Hungarian ethnic minority to learn in their native language. Ukraine denies the law is discriminatory. Numbering around 100,000, ethnic Hungarians are the largest minority group in Transcarpathia, a western Ukrainian region that was once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. "We want the Hungarians who live in Transcarpathia to have the opportunity to preserve their native language," Szijjarto said. Szijjarto added that during his talks with Ukraine's education minister earlier in the day he "made a couple of suggestions" to resolve the situation and urged Kiev to consider them. Kuleba said that Ukraine and Hungary were seeking to make their relations "exemplary". He called for Transcarpathia to become "a success story thanks to the joint efforts of Ukraine and Hungary." Another conflict between the countries erupted in 2018 when Kiev expelled a Hungarian consul, accusing her of handing out passports to ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine. Dual citizenship is prohibited by law in Ukraine. Hungary also repeatedly threatened to block Kiev's rapprochement with the European Union and NATO and obstructed Ukraine's participation in several high-profile meetings with Alliance member countries. dg/am/bmm