Hungarian minister cleared whether he is in talks with the Russians about Ukraine

Responding to a question on his visit to Belarus on Monday, Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó said he had delivered a message on ceasefire and peace talks. “I asked my Belarusian partner not to take steps … that could lead to the war drawing out or expanding geographically,” he said.

“If I wanted to talk to the Russians, I’d go to Moscow and would report on the meeting … Neither I nor any member of my delegation had talks with anyone apart from our Belarusian partners,” he on Friday, after a meeting of the Hungarian-Azeri economic cooperation committee.

Gas deliveries could start from Azerbaijan to Hungary this year, and the two countries have agreed that Hungarian companies should have a role in rebuilding Nagorno-Karabakh, stepping up bilateral cooperation in two strategic sectors, Szijjártó said. Szijjártó told a joint press conference with Azeri Labour Minister Sahil Babayev that with the political agreement in place, “technological and trade conditions will allow for gas deliveries from Azerbaijan to start this year,” greatly increasing that country’s role in Hungarian energy security.

Hungary might receive some 100 million cubic meters of Azeri natural gas this year, he said. The agreement also contains the possibility of a long-term contract on the delivery of 1-2 billion cubic meters of gas annually in the coming years, he said. Regarding the infrastructure developments necessary for the project, Szijjártó said: “If the European Union is serious about gas supply diversification and about bringing in new resources, then it will have to provide the resources to develop the infrastructure in southeast Europe.”