As a reaction to the expulsion of colonists, Czechoslovakia started to take countermeasures and declared that further expelled civilians would be settled on land belonging to members of the Hungarian minority and Hungarian citizens (the Hungarian aristocracy owned 50,000 ha of agricultural land and 14,000 ha of woods in Slovakia). Hungary promised that it would stop mass expulsions and was open to negotiations about property issues. Changes in Hungarian policy were driven by several factors. The new Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, István Csáky, advocated the opinion that Hungarian steps did not have the expected effects, increased anti-Hungarian sentiment, caused disillusionment of the last Hungarophiles and pushed the Slovak government into co-operation with the central Czechoslovak government. The Hungarian government continued the expulsions,l but claimed that they were not mass expulsion, that Slovaks and Czechs had left the territory voluntarily and that Hungary had not prevented them from doing so.