BUCHAREST, Oct. 13 - Ukraine has pledged not to close Romanian language schools under a new education law that has caused alarm in Romania, Russia and Hungary, AP reported Friday citing Romania's foreign minister.

Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu said Ukraine had promised: "no Romanian school will be closed ... and no teachers in a Romanian school will be fired."

Melescanu said students would be educated in their native tongue and also learn Ukrainian language, literature, history and geography.

Ukraine's new education law, which was passed last month, specifies that Ukrainian will be the main language used in schools, rolling back an option for lessons to be taught in other languages.

Ukraine approved the law amid the government’s concerns that some state-funded schools, for example Hungarian ethnic schools in TransCarpathia region, currently do not offer classes in Ukrainian language at all.

Russia, Hungary and Moldova, which all have minority communities in Ukraine, have also expressed concerns about the new language law. Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Thursday that Hungary would withhold its support for Ukraine's further integration with the European Union as long the law remains unchanged.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin on Friday insisted that Ukraine wasn't discriminating against ethnic minorities but giving them more language skills so they are competitive on the labor market.

Language has become a hot-button issue across Ukraine, particularly in eastern regions where the majority of the population speaks Russian as its first language.

The new law's language requirement overturns a 2012 law passed under then President Viktor Yanukovych, a Kremlin ally who fled to Russia two years later amid mass street protests.

That law allowed for minorities to introduce their languages in regions where they represented more than 10 percent of the population.

Kyiv has sought greater integration with the EU under the pro-Western government that took power following Yanukovych's ouster. That was followed by Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and backing of armed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

In June, it secured visa-free travel for its citizens to most EU countries in what Poroshenko called a "final exit of our country from the Russian Empire."

On September 1, an Association Agreement strengthening ties between Ukraine and the EU entered into force.

"This law is about people, it's not about politics," said Klimkin. "We need in the best possible way to develop our common approach." (ap/nr/ez)