Hungarian minister outraged: he had to wait 20 minutes for a Fox News interview
Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó had to wait twenty minutes for an interview with Fox News in the US, so he called the young diplomat who organised it home.
Szijjártó considered the interview to be “poor”
According to Azonnali.hu, Péter Szijjártó considered one of his television interviews to be poor, and therefore the embassy employee who was responsible, according to the minister, was recalled from Washington. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has not refuted the newspaper’s claims.
The Hungarian Foreign Minister gave an interview to Fox News on 21 July, in which he spoke about European gas consumption, the war and the energy crisis. The interview was conducted in a good atmosphere, but the newspaper reports that Szijjártó was not satisfied.
He recalled the young diplomat from Washington
The minister criticised the fact that he was not interviewed in the studio, but “only” on live TV, and that the interview started more than 20 minutes later than he expected, forcing him to wait unnecessarily. Following his return home, Szijjártó recalled from the Hungarian Embassy in Washington the recently seconded young diplomat whom he blamed for the poor organisation of the interview.
The press chief of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade wrote to the newspaper, “If a diplomat cannot perform their duties to the maximum under regulated circumstances and under clear conditions in the case of a high-level delegation, it is not guaranteed that they can perform the appropriate level of work in everyday life – or even in an emergency – for the area of responsibility and the affairs of Hungarian citizens.”
Two diplomats got away with more serious cases in the past
The article also points out that the case is not unique: earlier Népszava also reported that the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade had fired several leaders for relatively minor mistakes. According to Azonnali.hu, it is also strange that two diplomats have previously got away with much more serious cases.
One of them was Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky, who was working as ambassador to London when a suicide bomber blew himself up at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester late on 22 May 2017, writes szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu.
Even though the attack happened late at night, the embassy should have been informed if there were any Hungarian victims or injured and Szalay-Bobrovniczky should have informed the Foreign Office. However, he failed to do so, and Szijjártó found out what had happened from a morning TV programme.
The interview
You may watch the interview below.
Source: azonnali.hu, szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu