Hungary a ‘co-author’ of US draft peace resolution at UN, says foreign minister

Budapest, February 24 (MTI) – Hungary is helping to author the US draft peace resolution in respect of the war in Ukraine to be voted on in the UN later today, so the government will not back the text submitted by Ukraine and Europe, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, said in Brussels on Monday.

After a meeting of the EU foreign affairs council, Szijjártó noted that a UN vote will be held on two peace resolutions, with the US version co-authored by Hungary, Israel, Georgia, North Macedonia and Argentina, adding that this provided “the realistic path to peace”. A ministry statement quoted Szijjártó as saying the EU had “failed” over the past three years and had “only added fuel to the fire,” while the “pro-peace” US president had achieved in a few weeks “what we have been waiting for for three years.” Thanks to the start of US-Russian consultations, “hope for peace shines brighter”, he added.

Szijjártó said the 16th sanctions package against Russia had just been adopted by the foreign affairs council, and there was talk of yet another one, with the targeting of the energy sector “on the agenda as ever”. He said one of his counterparts had called an extra ten billion euros for Ukraine “peanuts”. “In the situation in Europe right now, this is quite a bold statement,” he added. Several counterparts had raised starting EU accession talks, he said, adding he made clear that this was “out of the question”.

He said the starting point must be keeping Ukraine to its promise of returning all the rights taken from the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia (Kárpátalja) before any other issues are even considered. Ukraine put forward a 48-page proposal mentioning the Crimean Tatars thirty times while referring to the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia only twice, he said. Szijjártó said that from Hungary’s perspective, the starting point of negotiations were not security guarantees for Ukraine but security guarantees for Hungarians.

Sanctions had amounted to “own goals”, he added, while arms deliveries only led to more and more deaths without bringing peace any closer.

“The only way to prevent further tragedies is to secure peace as soon as possible,” he said, adding that besides intensifying destruction, a prolonged war would also raise the risk of escalation. “All our hopes are now pinned on the US-Russia talks, which we want to succeed. Today I saw again that the pro-war European liberals do not want this,” he said.

“European pro-war liberals have no interest in the success of the US-Russia talks. Indeed, they have conspired to thwart them… They said openly and clearly that they want to assemble a package of money and weapons enabling Ukraine to say ‘no’ to a deal someone has called bad,” he said.