Hungarian leaders have backed calls from the Hungarian minority in northern Serbia for greater autonomy and representation in a new Yugoslav government.

At a joint news conference in Budapest, the Hungarian foreign minister, Janos Martonyi, and a senior representative of the ethnic Hungarians in Vojvodina, Jozsef Kasza, said an autonomy plan for the province should be included in efforts to democratise Yugoslavia.

They said the inclusion of the Hungarian minority would help to make the whole process more credible. The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, has called for an overall Balkan peace plan to prevent the three-hundred and fifty-thousand strong community from becoming a focus of ethnic conflict.