Hungary a ‘co-author’ of US draft peace resolution at UN, says foreign minister
Budapest, February 24 (MTI) – Hungary is helping to author the US draft peace resolution in respect of the war in Ukraine to be voted on in the UN later today, so the government will not back the text submitted by Ukraine and Europe, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, said in Brussels on Monday.
After a meeting of the EU foreign affairs council, Szijjártó noted that a UN vote will be held on two peace resolutions, with the US version co-authored by Hungary, Israel, Georgia, North Macedonia and Argentina, adding that this provided “the realistic path to peace”. A ministry statement quoted Szijjártó as saying the EU had “failed” over the past three years and had “only added fuel to the fire,” while the “pro-peace” US president had achieved in a few weeks “what we have been waiting for for three years.” Thanks to the start of US-Russian consultations, “hope for peace shines brighter”, he added.
Szijjártó said the 16th sanctions package against Russia had just been adopted by the foreign affairs council, and there was talk of yet another one, with the targeting of the energy sector “on the agenda as ever”. He said one of his counterparts had called an extra ten billion euros for Ukraine “peanuts”. “In the situation in Europe right now, this is quite a bold statement,” he added. Several counterparts had raised starting EU accession talks, he said, adding he made clear that this was “out of the question”.
He said the starting point must be keeping Ukraine to its promise of returning all the rights taken from the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia (Kárpátalja) before any other issues are even considered. Ukraine put forward a 48-page proposal mentioning the Crimean Tatars thirty times while referring to the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia only twice, he said. Szijjártó said that from Hungary’s perspective, the starting point of negotiations were not security guarantees for Ukraine but security guarantees for Hungarians.
Sanctions had amounted to “own goals”, he added, while arms deliveries only led to more and more deaths without bringing peace any closer.
“The only way to prevent further tragedies is to secure peace as soon as possible,” he said, adding that besides intensifying destruction, a prolonged war would also raise the risk of escalation. “All our hopes are now pinned on the US-Russia talks, which we want to succeed. Today I saw again that the pro-war European liberals do not want this,” he said.
“European pro-war liberals have no interest in the success of the US-Russia talks. Indeed, they have conspired to thwart them… They said openly and clearly that they want to assemble a package of money and weapons enabling Ukraine to say ‘no’ to a deal someone has called bad,” he said.
“They have conspired to spend Europeans’ money on prolonging the war, on more weapons and more money for Ukraine. They are talking about sums between 20 and 40 billion euros … and a stupefying volume of weapons,” he said.
Hungary will vote against “all such actions” and initiatives that put the success of the current US-Russia talks at risk, he said. Szijjártó said it was “clear” that Ukraine could not become a member of NATO as it lacked unanimous support within the organisation. “Of course, one could fool Ukraine and keep them in the dark … but that would be unfair to Ukraine.”
Meanwhile, the EU will have to decide on extending sanctions on Russian and Belarusian citizens until March 10, Szijjártó said. Hungary’s vote “will be strongly influenced by how the European Commission fulfills its earlier promises,” he added. He said the EC “recently guaranteed, in four points, Hungary’s energy security in respect of Ukraine, and they have already breached one of them.” While the EC pledged that Hungary would be involved in negotiations on the resumption of gas deliveries through Ukraine, the first round of talks was held last week without an invitation to Hungary, he said.
“If this carries on, this will have a grievous effect on our vote… Already today they tried to push through the extension of sanctions on private individuals. We rejected this in no uncertain terms. There is no reason to rush, as the deadline is March 10, Russia-US negotiations are under way, and nothing should be done to jeopardise their success,” Szijjártó said.
Govt official: Transcarpathian Hungarians can count on Hungarian govt
Budapest, February 24 (MTI) – Transcarpathian Hungarians can count on the government and the collective efforts of the entire nation, the state secretary for Hungarian communities abroad said on Monday, marking the third anniversary of the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Lőrinc Nacsa spoke at a conference focusing on the war’s impact on the region’s ethnic Hungarian community in the National Policy Research Institute in Budapest. Hungary’s position has been all along that a ceasefire and peace must be achieved as soon as possible, he told the event. “Peace is for Hungary a national issue since Transcarpathian Hungarians too die in this war,” Nacsa said. As we wrote a few days earlier, Orbán cabinet upholds the language rights of the Hungarians of Ukraine, details HERE.