What will the NATO say? Hungarian foreign minister holds talks with Russia’s Lavrov!

Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó discussed the war in Ukraine and bilateral relations with Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in New York on Tuesday. According to a ministry statement, Szijjártó told reporters after the meeting that Hungary wanted peace because it had been living in the shadow of the war for two and a half years now and was directly impacted by the conflict’s negative effects.

Szijjártó met Lavrov in New York again

Szijjártó said the West’s strategy had “failed”, arguing that “regardless of the weapons deliveries, regardless of the sanctions”, the situation on the battlefield had not gone the way the Europeans and the Americans had hoped.

“So if this strategy has failed then we need a new strategy,” he said. “With no solution on the battlefield, the solution must come from the negotiating table.”

This, he said, required diplomatic channels, without which “it will be very, very complicated to reach any kind of solution.”

Meanwhile, Szijjártó said he and Lavrov had also touched on bilateral issues, including the upgrade of Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant. He said he is scheduled to discuss the matter with Alexei Likhachev, the head of Russian nuclear energy company Rosatom, in Istanbul on Wednesday, because “there is a very interesting development”.

He noted that though Rosatom is the main contractor on the upgrade, there are also American, German and French companies working on the project, which he said “offers hope” for an eventual return to “normality” in international relations.

Joint work in nuclear projects

“Because if American, German, French and Russian companies can work together on a nuclear project, then they might be able to work together on another project as well in the future,” he added.

Turning to the issue of oil and gas supply, Szijjártó said gas deliveries were running smoothly, but Lukoil was currently not delivering oil to Hungary via Ukraine, and a legal solution was being sought in an effort to restart deliveries.

He said they also discussed Hungarian higher-education scholarships for Russian students, and they have also scheduled the next meeting of the Hungarian-Russian joint economic committee for Sept 20, which will also include an economic forum.

Szijjártó said the aim was to continue developing cooperation between the two countries in areas not affected by sanctions, as several Hungarian companies were successful on the Russian market in sectors like agriculture and the food and pharmaceutical industries.

Szijjártó: ‘Civilised East-West cooperation’ essential to meeting sustainable development goals

Civilised East-West cooperation is essential to achieving UN sustainable development and environmental protection goals, Szijjártó said in New York. UN climate protection goals set a few years ago will affect the future of the entire planet, the ministry cited Szijjarto telling a high-level political forum on sustainable development at the United Nations in New York on Tuesday.

“Last year was the warmest year ever, and the past decade was the warmest ever decade … so it clearly shows that environmental protection must be an important issue in the long term,” he said.

“If the major countries in world politics do not talk to each other, if they cut the diplomatic channels, if they are unable to maintained civilised cooperation, then we cannot achieve results in matters that are important for the future of the entire planet,” he added. Szijjarto said that achieving the UN sustainable development goals and protecting the environment would be impossible globally if the major states continued to refuse to talk to each other.

Nuclear energy reliable and sustainable

“Without a civilised East-West cooperation, it is impossible to achieve results in important matters affecting the future of the planet. In a cold war atmosphere it will be impossible to fulfil the environmental protection and sustainable development goals,” he said.

He added that Hungary showed an encouraging example, citing the expansion project of the Paks nuclear power station, which, he said, proved that despite all ideological attacks, nuclear energy could be used to produce a large volume of electricity in a reliable and sustainable way.

He noted that the general contractor for the project is Russian, but American, German and French subcontractors are also involved. Such cooperation “shows common sense prevailing over political prejudice and ideological motivations”, he added.

“There is still a chance for international cooperation based on common sense, even among those that for the time being refuse to even talk to each other in politics,” he said.

Stigmatising country for keeping diplomatic channels open ‘unacceptable’, says minister

Szijjártó said it was “unacceptable” that a country should be stigmatised in the transatlantic community for holding talks in the interest of peace and arguing in support of keeping diplomatic channels open. The ministry cited Szijjártó as saying in New York that the current Russian presidency of the UN Security Council had convened a meeting on the global security situation, and he would address the meeting on behalf of Hungary which has been living in the shadow of the war in Ukraine for two and a half years.

He said thousands of people were dying in the neighbouring country and there was a threat of the danger of destruction, plus the conflict carried a long-term risk for the reformation of blocs in the world and the return of the Cold War era. Hungary, he added, had already lost out on such a situation once and did not want to get in the same situation again.

“I have been a foreign minister for nearly ten years and during these ten years attended numerous EU meetings where we discussed wars and armed conflicts taking place in various parts of the world, usually far away from Europe, and every time the European Union, European counterparts, the Brussels bureaucrats, and the high representative for foreign affairs stated in an arrogant and scornful manner that everyone must be called on to restore peace, lay down their arms, and everyone must be called on to find a peaceful solution to the war conflict,” he said.

Currently, however, in the case of the war in Ukraine, “the EU, the European bureaucrats and leaders argue for the direct opposite”, he said.

“Not only do they not want peace talks, not only do they continually sharpen the conflict and not only do they not consider escalation a danger, but when someone talks about peace and calls for talks, they immediately brand them ‘a Putin puppet, a spy of the Russians, a Kremlin’s propagandist, a Trojan horse’, etc.,” Szijjártó said.

He also lamented that they questioned the legitimacy of using diplomatic channels, which he said was unacceptable.

“It is unacceptable in the 21st century that someone should be stigmatised in Europe, America and the transatlantic community for arguing in support of keeping a given country’s diplomatic channels open … because a given country pursues diplomatic talks in the interest of peace,” he said.

He also said that recent years had demonstrated that Europe was following the wrong path in terms of its leaders having practically given up on the possibility of an independent strategy concerning the war and instead copying the American strategy, disregarding all considerations of their own.

Szijjártó said the continent had consequently found itself having to live in the shadow of the danger of war, with the risk of escalation being extremely high.

“It is high time for Europe to go its own way in terms of the war in Ukraine,” he said. “It is high time for Europe to have its strategy for peace, because the war is under way in Europe, with Europeans dying and a European country standing on the verge of destruction, so the madness must be stopped at this point.”

If the situation did not change, the war would get out of control and the risk of escalation would be “dramatically higher”, Szijjártó said.

The UN has been established exactly for the purpose of ensuring that everyone could talk to each other, even in case they were enemies, he added.

“In light of this, the European efforts to ban certain countries from maintaining talks with the Russians, the Belarusians and the Chinese under the auspices of the UN was totally unacceptable,” he said.

“Europe must return to the grounds of common sense and the path of diplomatic solutions; the legitimacy of the use of diplomatic channels must be given back, and diplomatic channels must be reopened with Russia, while simultaneously talks must be held with the Ukrainians because this could be the only solution to the war,” he said.

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