(Reuters) – The new Slovak government’s pledge to stop military aid to Ukraine should only affect army supplies and not commercial sales, parliament’s speaker and leader of the second-biggest ruling party, Peter Pellegrini, was quoted as saying on Friday.
Prime Minister Robert Fico took part in a two-day European Union summit on Thursday and Friday where he said that Slovakia will stop supporting its neighbour Ukraine militarily while still being a backer of humanitarian aid.
Fico won last month’s election with pledge to stop military aid to Ukraine on his manifesto. He was appointed as prime minister for a fourth time this week, leading a three-party government.
Commenting on the message on Friday, Pellegrini, leader of the centre-left Hlas party, was quoted by media as saying he favoured allowing orders made on a commercial basis to continue.
“If someone orders and pays for these systems, then that is support for Slovak industry,” Dennik N quoted him saying.
Slovakia’s defence industry has seen a boost with others in central and eastern Europe amid efforts to aid Ukraine’s battle against the Russian invasion.
Germany, Denmark and Norway said a year ago they would buy 16 Slovak-made Zuzana-2 howitzers for Ukraine.
Dennik N said the first was delivered in August.
Fico told a parliamentary committee ahead of the summit that he saw no military solution to the conflict, and said the army’s supplies were depleted and the army needed to concentrate on its own stocks.
(Reporting by Jason Hovet in Prague; Editing by Alison Williams)
