Minister Martonyi met with officials of the Palestinian officials

Hungary continues to support establishing an independent, viable and contiguous Palestinian state, Foreign Minister János Martonyi told his Palestinian counterpart, Riyad Al-Maliki, during talks on the Middle East peace process.

“Hungary is a friend of Israel, it is a friend of the Palestinian people and we have again had the opportunity to demonstrate our balanced policy towards the Middle East, this time to the Palestinian side,” Mr Martonyi said in Ramallah on Monday. Developing relations between the Palestinian National Authority and Hungary further is in Budapest’s interest, he said, announcing an increase in the number of grants for Palestinian students to study in Hungary under the “Stipendium Hungaricum” scheme. Later in the day, he will return to the territory of the Palestinian National Authority to hand over donations to a school for handicapped children in Bethlehem. “What is primarily important there is the friendly gesture,” Mr Martonyi said.

The Hungarian foreign minister started his two-day official visit to the Middle East by paying tribute to Jewish victims of WWII in Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Centre on Monday morning. He afterwards met Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman for a working lunch and travelled on to Ramallah where he met leaders of the Palestinian Authority.

Ministry of Foreign Affair

Photo: www.freepalestine.eoldal.hu

Source: http://kormany.hu/