Kenyan Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi visits Hungary

The war in Ukraine has impacts not only on Europe but also on Africa, so both continents have an interest in achieving peace as soon as possible, Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said on Tuesday.

Szijjártó met Musalia Mudavadi, his Kenyan counterpart, in Budapest, according to a statement from the foreign ministry, which cited Szijjártó as saying that armed conflicts, the threat of terrorism, and the waves of migration were serious global challenges.

“We have all suffered long enough from a war we have nothing to do with. So we’ve had enough of European politicians bent on pursuing war, trying to thwart peace efforts and surreptitiously undermining peace talks,” Szijjártó said. “Peace is in the shared interest of the people of Europe and Africa, so we have an interest in the success of Donald Trump’s peace efforts and the recent US-Ukrainian talks in Saudi Arabia yielding results, so that international politics can return to the basis of common sense,” Szijjártó said.

“Kenya is also on the side of peace,” he said, adding that it played a “crucial stabilising role in settling conflicts in the region, contributing to improving the security situation in Africa and Europe.”

Regarding terrorism, Szijjártó said that nearly 20,000 people were killed by radical organisations in Africa last year, and called for increased efforts to fight terrorism, which he called one of the primary causes of illegal migration.

Africa‘s population could increase by 950 million by 2050, and “unless we rein in terrorism, it will involve the largest-ever wave of migration to hit Europe,” he said, adding that “seeing the state Europe’s in now, the continent will hardly be able to tackle it.”