FM Szijjártó: Peace is easier to achieve with negotiations

The chance for achieving peace is “far greater” with negotiations, re-opening diplomatic channels and dialogue than with weapons deliveries, sanctions and a strategy based on diplomatic refusal, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, said in a telephone interview with public radio broadcast on Sunday.

Szijjártó said it was now “apparent to everybody” that the strategy of Europe and the United States over the past two and a half years didn’t work, even though Western politicians wouldn’t say so in public because that would be an admission of failure.

Sanctions were a “shot in the foot, then the knee, then the chest” for the European economy, while European and American weapons deliveries didn’t change the situation on the battlefield and didn’t bring the war any nearer to a close, he added.

Szijjártó said there was no solution on the battlefield and that resolution needed to be sought at the negotiating table and by opening diplomatic channels. He added that restoring the legitimacy of dialogue for peace was “extraordinarily important”.

Addressing Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s talks in the past week, Szijjártó said no politician, especially a European one, could have done what the prime minister did. Besides Hungary’s prime minister, European politicians who can talk to everybody, who are welcomed everywhere and accepted as negotiating partners are no more, he added.

“Besides Viktor Orbán, there is nobody in Europe today in the position to hold talks with the presidents of China, Russia, Ukraine, Turkiye and the former, and many think future, president of the United States in the course of a week,” he said.

He added that there were three big players on the global political scene today that could achieve a ceasefire: China, the United States and the European Union.

At least two, but preferably three, must advocate for peace if there is a chance for the warring sides to move in the direction of peace rather than further escalation, he said.

He said the US presidential election could have a decisive impact on the matter as it would determine whether the US continued its “pro-war policy” or there was a chance to bring pro-peace policy to the forefront.

Commenting on the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, Szijjártó pointed to attempts “to block pro-peace policies with the most brutal, most unimaginable” means, just as with the Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico.

Read also:

• Hungary’s presidency: Is PM Orbán carefully walking a tightrope?
• Among the region’s currencies, the Hungarian forint lost the most value in 20 years