Hungary's Prime Minister Orban in Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Zelensky

July 2 (UPI) -- Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky , his first visit since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in a sign of a thawing in relations between the neighbors.

The two leaders were pictured shaking hands in a photo posted on X by the Pravda news agency ahead of the summit which came a day after Budapest assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union and a week after it dropped its opposition to opening negotiations for Ukraine to join the bloc which got underway in Luxembourg on Tuesday.

"Viktor Orban arrived in Kyiv this morning to discuss European peace with President Volodymyr Zelensky," Orban's spokesman, Zoltan Kovacs, wrote on X .

"The talks will focus on possibilities for achieving peace, as well as current issues in Hungarian-Ukrainian bilateral relations."

The breakthrough follows negotiations on the contentious question of the rights of Ukraine's ethnic Hungarian minority population , principally in the southwest of the country which shares a border with Hungary, that Budapest has long alleged is the victim of state-sponsored discrimination -- charges Kyiv rejects.

"It was a precondition for the meeting that the issue of nationality rights was resolved," the Kyiv Independent quoted a source as saying. "In recent weeks, an agreement has been reached. They will be able to announce this as a success."

The issue has been the subject of an intensive diplomatic effort by Kyiv and Brussels to work with Budapest on the issue with at least one high-level set of talks between Zelensky's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, and Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.

In January, Hungary presented Kyiv with 11 demands guaranteeing legal, political and cultural protections to ethnic Hungarians in exchange for agreeing to Ukrainian accession to the EU. The list covers the use of Hungarian in education including exams set in Hungarian and some more contentious conditions such as political representation for ethnic Hungarians in the Rada.

Hungary has consistently sought to block Ukrainian accession to both the EU and NATO, Western efforts to provide military assistance and Russia sanctions with which it has maintained friendly ties.

Szijjarto has made at least five visits to Russia since its forces invaded Ukraine in Feb. 2022 and overrode EU sanctions by visiting Belarus in June.

Last month, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced a compromise deal whereby Hungary would not prevent the other 31 NATO members from providing military support to Ukraine on condition it did not have to take part or pay anything toward it.

Stoltenberg said the deal for no Hungarian personnel or funding to be used NATO actions supporting Ukraine was in line with members' collective defense commitment as there was no obligation to participate in all NATO missions, operations or activities.

The workaround is set to be finalized next week when NATO leaders gather in Washington to mark the 75th anniversary of the defense alliance.

In December, Hungary was the lone holdout among the 27-member country EU to block $55 billion in European Union aid for Ukraine. European Council President Charles Michel said, without naming Hungary, that the funding was firmly supported by 26 EU nations.