Hungary does not support Mark Rutte as NATO Secretary General

It is no achievement in diplomacy to limit contacts to those that share consensual positions in everything, the foreign minister said on Tuesday. The Hungarian Foreign Minister spoke about the dinner with Lavrov, Poland and Rutte .

The ministry cited Péter Szijjártó telling a press conference that what he considered a real achievement in diplomacy was to maintain contacts with those that have a different opinion in certain matters.

Dinner table with Lavrov

At a press conference held after meeting OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann in Budapest, Szijjártó was asked to comment on criticism by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk about him having dinner with Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov at last week’s Antalya Diplomatic Forum. As we wrote earlier: FM Szijjártó happily laughing with Russian FM Lavrov on the day of Navalny’s burial – VIDEO

He said relations between Hungarians and Poles went beyond friendship and the brotherhood they shared “can tolerate the political episodes that the prime minister of Poland has produced in the past few weeks”.

“One must simply respect that we have different views about the possibility of peace in Ukraine,” he said.

“We are a pro-peace government, while the government of Poland holds more of a pro-war position,” he added.

He also said that the Antalya forum was “almost like a United Nations general assembly session” and he sat at the same dinner table with the foreign ministers of six or seven countries, including Russia.

“And if one sits next to a foreign minister colleague, then they usually have a conversation,” he said. “It is among our duties as foreign ministers to maintain contacts with each other.”

Szijjarto said that if he again gets the opportunity and needs to do so, he will again hold talks with his Russian counterpart.

“The Polish prime minister would be surprised to know the long list of European politicians who have asked me in recent years to help them establish contacts with the Russians, to organise a meeting or to pass on a message,” he said.

“What’s more, occasionally even the representatives of opposing sides have asked such a favour and if I again receive that type of request, I will be certainly happy to help,” he said.

Mark Rutte as NATO secretary-general?

Commenting on reports about the potential election of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte as NATO secretary-general, he said the Hungarian government would not be able to support the appointment of a person “who wanted to bring Hungary to its knees in the past”. “It would be very strange if the Hungarian government supported the nomination of such a person,” he added.

read also:

• PM Orbán: Dutch PM Rutte thinks he can tell Hungarians how to raise their children