Photo: Valery Sharifulin/TASS
UN, 17 July. Hungarian Foreign and Trade Minister Peter Szijjarto criticised the European Union's efforts to ban his country from establishing contacts with Moscow to settle the conflict in Ukraine, saying his country rejects such a policy.
"Not only is this unacceptable, but it is also a scandal when a country is stigmatised in the 21st century simply for favouring a negotiated solution and using its channels of communication with parties that disagree on key issues," Szijjarjtto said in a debate at the UN Security Council, commenting on the latest criticism of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for his peace efforts in relation to Ukraine.
During his ten-day peacekeeping mission, the Hungarian Prime Minister held talks with Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev on 2 July and three days later met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. He then visited Beijing, where he met Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and travelled to Washington, where he held talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the NATO summit. Later, he travelled to Florida to meet former US President Donald Trump, with whom he also discussed ways of settling the Ukraine crisis.
His visits to Moscow and Beijing have drawn open criticism in Brussels, where European officials have said that although the country holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, they have not given Hungary any powers to act on behalf of the entire European community.
The Hungarian government responded that Orbán represented his country during these visits and that his peacekeeping mission would continue despite the criticism.
TASS/gnews.cz-jav_07
English 
Czech