“Hungary has a clear standpoint on the Middle East and is not adapting its foreign policy to third parties”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó declared with relation to the status of Jerusalem at Wednesday’s session of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

At the Minister’s annual hearing before the Committee, Mr. Szijjártó declared with relation to a comment by the body’s Deputy Chair Márton Gyöngyösi (Jobbik), according to which the Hungarian Government was “being deceitful” when with regard to America’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel it spoke only of the economic relations between the EU and Israel: “The fact that we are not adapting our foreign policy to third parties is not being deceitful”.

“Hungary has a clear standpoint on the Middle East, and although ‘we will not be the ones to dictate what happens there’, we do have wishes, such as the fact that there should be peace and everyone should be able to live in safety”, he highlighted. “That a third party makes a statement with relation to this, and I must rush to issue a statement in response, is something that I do not accept. There has been no deceit; what has happened is simply that our standpoint on the issue has not changed”, Mr. Szijjártó said, adding that the Government had not dealt with this issue so far either.

The Minister noted that economic cooperation between Israel and the European Union is important, because European competitiveness needs the level of innovation and technology represented by Israel.

The Committee’s Fidesz Chair, Zsolt Németh said that in his opinion the United States’ decision could move the Middle Eastern peace process forward from the stalemate that has developed in recent years, stressing that the two-state solution continued to be the determining target of the international community and this is a standpoint that is also shared by Hungary. The statement by the President of the United States did not cover the fact that Jerusalem cannot also be the capital of Palestine, he noted.

In his annual report, the Hungarian Foreign Minister said that in his assessment 2017 had been a record year for diplomacy, referring to the fact that the Prime Ministers of Israel and China both visited Hungary this year, as did the President of Egypt, in addition to which the leaders of 16 countries were in Budapest to attend the China-CEEC Summit. Furthermore, Hungary hosted the World Export Development Forum, and the foreign ministers’ meetings of the Visegrád Group (V4) and the Eastern Partnership, and of the V4 and the Western Balkan countries were both held in Hungary, as were the V4-Great Britain foreign affairs meeting and the Hungary-Latin America Forum.

Mr. Szijjártó told the Committee that he had been on official visits to 57 countries this year, met with the foreign ministers of 125 countries, and concluded 57 bilateral agreements. New diplomatic representations were opened in six countries: New Zeeland, the Philippines, Uzbekistan, Peru, Columbia and Ghana.

The Minister said that in his opinion migration was the determining challenge facing Hungarian foreign policy, telling the Committee: we must be prepared for the fact that the supply of potential new waves of migration aimed at Europe is unending and that immigration and migration will continue to be present in both Africa and the Middle East in the upcoming period.

According to the Hungarian Foreign Minister, for this reason all European statements that encourage immigration are inflicting further dangers upon the people of Europe. In his report, Mr. Szijjártó said Hungary’s standpoint on this issue is unchanged: help must be taken to where the trouble is, and accordingly the Hungary Helps programme will be further reinforced, in addition to which the Government continues to agree that Middle Eastern and African countries must be provided with assistance to help them protect their own borders.

On the issue of energy security, Mr. Szijjártó said: “Like it or not, the only viable diversification opportunity today is the new Russian natural gas transport route”. “Our friends in Western Europe”, who otherwise have purchased record quantities of gas from Russia this year, are heavily stressing the need for diversification, but all related EU regulations and activities are resulting in exactly the opposite result, he noted.

In reply to a question from the opposition MSZP party, Mr. Szijjártó stressed that he regards Western Europe as “hugely hypocritical” from this respect, because while Russia is being “pounded” at the level of Western European political communication, business agreements are still being concluded behind the scenes. The Minister said that in his opinion concluding contracts is not in itself a problem, and is in fact the right thing to do, but then there is no need for these statements according to which those who dare to speak of the importance of pragmatic cooperation with Russia are the traitors of Europe.

(MTI)