Hungary reacted angrily Wednesday after U.S. President Barack Obama singled out the EU member state for trying to muzzle civil society groups.

In a short statement, Hungary's foreign ministry said Obama's comments, made Tuesday in a speech in New York, were "not based on facts."

The United States on Thursday warned Hungary against trying to muzzle civil society groups,following controversial police raids on two foreign-backed organizations.

"These police raids appear to be aimed at suppressing critical voices and restricting the space for civil society to operate freely," the US said at a gathering of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Around 1,000 people took to the streets of the Hungarian capital on Saturday to protest against a perceived government crackdown on civil society following police raids on two Norway-backed NGOs.

The searches at the Budapest-based Okotars Foundation and Demnet, which distribute grant aid to local campaign groups from Norway, took place on Monday. The Norwegian government called the police action "unacceptable."

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Monday said he would seek to form a political alliance to stop the European Union pulling away from Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.

"The EU gets further away from Russia every day. That's not only bad for Hungary, but for the entire EU," Orban told Hungarian ambassadors in Budapest.

Hungary will send ammunition to Iraq to help the war-torn country's armed forces in their fight against "terrorism," the EU country's Ministry of Defense said in a statement late Thursday. 

The ammunition includes several million cartridges, thousand of mines and several thousand armor-piercing shells. 

Hungary's Foreign Ministry denied Friday a Russian claim that it was supplying Ukraine with weapons, which came after a pro-Moscow Hungarian website said that T-72 tanks had been delivered to Kiev.

Hungarian lawmakers approved Friday a set of radical measures to ease household mortgage debt despite criticism from banks, which expect to foot a bill of several billion euros.

The changes are the latest attempt by Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government to help around a million Hungarians whose repayment rates on foreign currency mortgages rocketed after the 2008-09 financial crisis.

The French National Front and Austrian Freedom Party were called "Zionist" by the leader of Hungary's Jobbik party Thursday, as far-right parties jostled to form blocs in the European parliament.

"Jobbik does not make alliances with Zionist parties -- like the French National Front and the Austrian Freedom Party, simply for financial reasons," Gabor Vona said in an interview with the Magyar Hirlap newspaper.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Friday renewed a controversial call for autonomy for his ethnic kin in western Ukraine, less than a week after sparking a diplomatic row with both Kiev and Warsaw.

"The full weight of the Hungarian state is behind the autonomy demands of the Transcarpathian Hungarians," Orban said in an interview on the M1 public television channel late Friday.

Hungary asked Brussels on Thursday to lift the immunity of an MEP from the far-right Jobbik party, amid reports he was being investigated on allegations of spying for Russia.

"Hungary's chief prosecutor Peter Polt has turned to European Parliament President Martin Schulz to suspend the parliamentary rights of MEP Bela Kovacs," Polt's spokesman Geza Fazekas told Agence France Presse.