This war only has losers because people die in this war. Talking about a winner is pointless, Péter Szijjártó stated in the BBC program Hard Talk.
We want the war to end as quickly as possible because it is happening in our neighborhood with immediate and serious consequences. He pointed out: there is a significant Hungarian community living in the western part of Ukraine, whose members are conscripted into the Ukrainian army, many of them are sent to the front line and many of them die.
"So we want an immediate ceasefire, peace talks, and we want them to finally reach a peace agreement that would put an end to innocent people dying," said the minister.
He added: it would be very bad if NATO took part in this conflict, because it would mean the outbreak of the third world war the next day. There are member states that supply weapons and other military equipment to Ukraine.
"We don't do it that way. We are carrying out the largest humanitarian operation in our history, but we are not supplying weapons, because our position is very clear: peace is much better than war. And we don't see arms shipments ending the war."
he noted.
Péter Szijjártó called it fake news that new agreements had been reached with Russia.
"We have not signed any new contracts, as we signed our agreement on nuclear energy in 2014, that is, 9 years ago. We signed the last long-term gas contract in 2021, almost two years ago. We also have a long-term oil contract that we signed many years ago. There are no new agreements”.
He emphasized: we are looking for alternative solutions, but, for example, in order to be able to deliver gas from Azerbaijan, many infrastructural developments are necessary in the southeastern part of Europe. We have contacted the European Commission together with Romanian, Bulgarian, Greek and Turkish colleagues in order to secure funding for such projects. There has been no real commitment from the European Commission so far.
We have also contacted the Poles, as they are expanding their LNG capacity, so if more LNG comes to Poland, we can buy from there, but it will all happen within 3-4 years. The question is how to ensure a secure energy supply for the country now, today and tomorrow.
In response to the question regarding the blocking of Ukrainian food imports, Péter Szijjártó explained: we are not the only ones or the first to make such a decision. The purpose of our agreement was to support Ukraine in the export of grain and other foodstuffs from Ukraine to those parts of the world where the lack of Ukrainian exports could cause food shortages. That was the original objective.
We donated more than 3 million dollars for this purpose when the President of Ukraine requested it and we opened the transit routes through Hungary. But the exported grain and food simply got stuck in Central Europe.
This was not the agreement, this was not the goal and this is not what we agreed on.
The grain and other foodstuffs that flooded Central Europe, especially Hungary, caused enormous difficulties for Hungarian agriculture and Hungarian farmers.
You can watch the full conversation below:
Source: MTI, hirado.hu
