Hungarian minister in the UN: American-Russian peace talks needed

Support for peace in Ukraine is much stronger in the United Nations than in the European Union, where those proposing diplomatic solutions are immediately branded pro-Russian, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in New York on Thursday, after meeting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. According to him, Americans should start talks with the Russians over peace in Ukraine.

Different atmosphere in the UN

Regarding the war, “the atmosphere in New York is very different from that in Brussels, where those speaking of the importance of peace are immediately branded pro-Russian, which is clearly nonsense,” the foreign ministry cited Szijjártó as saying. The war in Ukraine has no winners and will only cause harm, and the casualties will only grow as the conflict is drawn out, he said.

In the UN, “representatives of the world outside Europe do not understand why Europe, or certain countries and players there, want to make a global war of what seems to them a regional conflict,” he said. Support for peace is stronger in the UN because “despite the geographical distance, countries outside Europe also suffer from the consequences of war,” he said. Diplomatic solutions will only be possible if the opposing parties, “whether they confront each other directly or indirectly”, are ready to negotiate. The UN is the “best possible channel of communication,” he added, noting that the organisation was originally created as a communication platform for warring or hostile countries.

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“The UN must, finally, fulfil its role in history”

“That is why I asked the UN Secretary-General to do everything in his power to make sure the UN fulfils its mediating role and as a platform for negotiations in this war,” he said. Both successful negotiations in this war so far were connected to the UN, he noted. One was the agreement on restarting grain exports from Ukraine, and as a result of the other, “thanks to the International Atomic Energy Agency, nuclear accidents have been avoided so far,” he said.

“The UN must, finally, fulfil its role in history,” he said. “We must not forget that we can only save lives by brokering peace; sanctions and weapon deliveries will not bring about peace but rather risk prolonging and broadening the war,” he said. Besides Guterres, Szijjártó also held bilateral talks with Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, as well as his Albanian, Georgian, Gutemalan, North Macedonian and Japanese counterparts, the statement said.

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Source: MTI