Proud Christian PM Orbán congratulated Muslim leader for chasing away 120k Christians?

The Hungarian liberal media are outraged: the proud Christian Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán congratulated Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev for conquering the Karabakh region and chasing away more than 120 thousand Armenian Christians.

As we wrote before, PM Viktor Orbán took part in the Astana session of the Turkic Council. Since he and his cabinet members spent there three days, they had multiple talks with Eastern leaders, including Turkish, Kazakh, and Uzbek heads and members of the governments. Among others, Orbán said that Ukraine cannot win the war on the battlefield, and the EU struggles with many problems. Meanwhile, foreign minister Péter Szijjártó said Kazakhs and Hungarians were related, and he also inaugurated a street in Astana named after Sándor Petőfi, one of the greatest Hungarian poets.

Orbán and the Turkic Council:

Orbán started his speech by congratulating Turkish President Erdogan on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Türkiye. He praised Türkiye’s fantastic performance then, which enabled them to revise the Sévres peace agreement and gain back territories.

Afterwards, he congratulated Ilham Aliyev for his work for the Caucasus region’s stabilisation. Furthermore, he wished good luck for the reconstruction of the Karabakh territory, 444.hu wrote.

The Karabakh region belonged de jure to Azerbaijan, but the Armenian forces managed to defeat the Azeri army in the first war between 1988 and 1994. As a result, the Armenian forces remained there, and de facto, the Karabakh region became autonomously led by the Armenians.

Despite praising Azerbaijan’s victory, Hungary-Armenia ties strengthening

That is what the Azerbaijani army terminated in October. They defeated the Armenian forces in just one day. Following that, the Armenian population left the region. As a result, 120 thousand Christians left the home of their ancestors living there for more than 2,000 years. That is what Orbán praised in Astana even though he regularly likes to propagate himself as the great protector of the Christians. HERE we wrote about the Hungary helps program targeting the support of the persecuted Christians all over the world.

Of course, Azerbaijan celebrates the reconquest since they think about the Karabakh territory as their homeland and believe the Armenians just took it from them. As we reported HERE, Hungarian companies will partake in its rebuilding project.

Armenia regards the defeat as a national tragedy and is preparing to support the 120 thousand refugees while the country is hit by e.g. a serious housing crisis. That comes after many Russians moved to Armenia to escape the Ukraine war.

Interestingly, the Armenians do not think Orbán’s statements harm their national interest. Despite the Hungarian government’s positive attitude towards the Azerbaijani retake of the Karabakh region, Péter Szijjártó was on an official visit to Yerevan in October, where his meetings “put an end to a long ordeal”. HERE is our related article.

UPDATE

The Azerbaijani Ambassador to Hungary responded to our article:

The article accuses Azerbaijan of occupying the territories, which are internationally recognized as part of my country, ancestral lands of Azerbaijan that have been burnt, destroyed and deprived from any chances of development for 30 years during the occupation perpetrated by Armenia. 

For 30 years we have been negotiating with our international partners to find a 

peaceful solution to the conflict, but it became unbearable as Azerbaijani citizens were being killed as a result of breaches of cease-fire and mine explosions regularly. All of these made the efforts of the international mediators futile. 

The author attempts to use the religion factor as the main cause of the conflict. However, Azerbaijan has excellent relations with neighboring Christian Georgia and all the citizens of my country enjoy equal rights and freedoms regardless of their ethnic background and religious affiliation including 30000 Armenians residing in different cities of Azerbaijan. 

The internationally recognized territories of Azerbaijan were occupied by Armenia for 30 years through the puppet regime established in Garabagh, which was not recognized by any state including Armenia. Now that this regime has declared its dissolution, Azerbaijan has started reintegrating local Armenian population into our society. 

We are grateful to our strategic partner Hungary for always standing on the side of norms and principles of international law and supporting territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Peace in the South Caucasus is an important factor for security architecture of Europe. Azerbaijan supports peace and stability in the region with the peace treaty soon to be signed between Azerbaijan and Armenia. 

In these times, the baseless propaganda only hinders the peace and reconciliation process. 

Sincerely,

Ambassador Tahir Taghizade