Updated

Slovenia's Foreign Ministry has dismissed a Hungarian embassy protest over a magazine cover cartoon that showed Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban giving a Nazi salute.

The ministry said Friday that it "consistently respects the principle of freedom of the press and expression in its policies and activities and neither encroaches upon editorial policy of the Slovenian media, nor assesses it."

The cartoon published in the Slovenian liberal political weekly Mladina on March 22 also shows Slovenian right-wing politicians pressing against a towering Orban and hugging him.

Hungary's embassy protested the cartoon in a letter to Mladina's editors and in a March 25 note to the Slovenian Foreign Ministry. Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs has described the cartoon as "yet another unfortunate example of the intolerance of today's left."