Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said at the joint press conference with his Egyptian colleague, Sameh Shoukry on Thursday in Budapest that we consider Egypt to be one of the most important pillars of European stability.

Hungary considers it extremely important to have stability in the North African country since the terrorist organisations threatening the stability of Egypt are also threatening that of Europe, added Péter Szijjártó.

Hungary seriously condemns the activities of terrorist groups such as the organisation called Islamic State (IS), the Al-Qaeda international terrorist organisation, the Al-Shabaab extremist Islamist organisation or the Nigerian-based terrorist group Boko Haram, the leader of Hungarian diplomacy emphasised.

Péter Szijjártó considered that the Hungarian Parliament made a responsible and wise decision when voting for sending Hungarian soldiers to Erbil, Iraq. He added that the Government is currently working to secure that the military units can take their positions in their place of service in the middle of May in the Middle East country. The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade consulted over the phone among others with the ministers of foreign affairs of Iraq and the Regional Government of Kurdistan the day before, and he is planning to travel to Iraq in May.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary emphasised that the activities of the terrorist organisations cause serious humanitarian disaster in the Middle East and North African region. For this reason, hundreds of refugees are trying to enter Europe through the Mediterranean. Péter Szijjártó considered that the best remedy for illegal immigration is establishing the local economic and political conditions that help eradicate the social phenomena fuelling terrorism.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt emphasised that Cairo highly appreciates Hungarian-Egyptian bilateral relations and is hoping that these may continue to develop in the future.

Sameh Shoukry claimed that in order to eliminate the destructive phenomenon of terrorism, terrorist organisations all over the world are needed to be handled uniformly and in an overarching manner. A uniform approach is necessary to eradicate the social and economic phenomena fuelling terrorism.

The leader of Egyptian diplomacy said that with his Hungarian colleague they agreed on maintaining contact continuously and taking into consideration a policy that could make the Middle East safe.

The Ministers of Foreign Affairs signed an agreement on bilateral educational, scientific and cultural cooperation according to which nearly one hundred Egyptian students will arrive to Hungary to study at one of the higher education institutions.

Péter Szijjártó said about Egyptian-Hungarian bilateral trade relations that these are developing continuously: in the first month of 2015 there was a 17% increase in the trade between the two countries compared to the same period last year. The total amount of trade in goods was nearly USD 21 million in January.

The leader of the Hungarian diplomacy added that the Hungarian National Trading House has been operating in Cairo since last November and claimed that Eximbank provides a credit facility up to USD 19.28 million for Egyptian investors.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade)