Bilateral talks with Moldova, Panama, Uzbekistan, Mali in Türkiye

Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó had bilateral talks with representatives of several countries on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomatic Forum under way in Turkey, he said on Facebook on Saturday.

Szijjártó said Moldova “is making every effort to get closer to the European Union” and expressed the Hungarian government’s support to those endeavours. He said the EU needed new members “that can lend dynamism and freshness”.

Concerning another country, he said “Panama may be far from us, still we are extremely interested that that country should be successful,” adding that the Panama Canal was a major route for global trade and “we absolutely have an interest in the success of global trade.” He noted current shipping problems on the Red Sea and said “may the same never occur in the Panama Canal”.

Szijjártó called Uzbekistan Hungary’s partner in central Asia, and said that a new industrial park built for Hungarian companies would soon be opened in that country. The first Hungarian investment projects will be launched in the next few months, he added. He also said an EU-Uzbekistan cooperation agreement would be signed during Hungary’s upcoming EU presidency.

In another Facebook entry, Szijjártó said stabilisation in the Sahel region was key for Europe in terms of preventing further migration waves from Africa to Europe. He noted, however, that “cooperation programmes and military assistance cannot be provided without local support … that is why it was important to start direct dialogue with Mali today, another key country with regard to security in the Sahel, thus in terms of controlling migration to Europe.”

Lebanon, he said, “suffers a lot from fights in the Middle East and the Lebanese government wants peace in their country and the international community must provide every assistance.” “We can thus contribute to efforts preventing the Middle East conflict from escalation and from becoming an even greater global securit risk,” he added.

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