Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó held a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the 71st Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Thursday.
According to Mr. Szijjártó, Hungarian-Russian relations are pragmatic and are based on mutual respect.
In a telephone statement to Hungarian news agency MTI, the Hungarian Foreign Minister said that during the debating of bilateral issues he had confirmed to Mr. Lavrov Hungary’s standpoint according to which it is in the clear interests of both Hungary and Central Europe in general for both Russia and the European Union, and Russia and the Transatlantic Community, to maintain good and balanced relations.
“Whenever the opposite has occurred during the course of history, Central Europe and Hungary have always drawn the short straw”, Mr. Szijjártó pointed out, adding that accordingly balanced relations are in Hungary’s national interests. However, the current situation does not point in this direction, “but we Hungarians can contribute to achieving this goal by maintaining pragmatic and logical dialogue with Russia based on mutual respect”, he said, adding that both parties have the required openness.
Among major economic achievements, the Foreign Minister mentioned that a Hungarian-Russian consortium is conducting extremely advanced negotiations on shipping seven hundred railway cars to Egypt with the help of Eximbank. “If we examine only bilateral relations then the relationship between Hungary and Russia is of course developing well to the extent possible and is based on mutual respect”, Mr. Szijjártó said, adding however that “Hungary also expects everyone to respect international law”.
The Hungarian Foreign Minister also told the press that Syria and putting the situation in Syria in order was also an important topic during his meeting with Mr. Lavrov. “I told Sergey Lavrov that solving the situation in Syria is of extreme importance to Hungary, because if the Americans and Russians cannot work together to achieve peace in Syria soon, then Hungary believes that none of the causes of the migration crisis will cease to exist and another wave of immigrants could set out of Europe, which is something we would very much like to avoid”, the Minister told MTI.
(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade/MTI)
