Due to Joe Biden's statements about Prime Minister Viktor Orbán last week, the American ambassador was also called in, who was unable to support his president's statements with facts.
Hungary is not obliged to tolerate lies, even from the president of the United States, which is why the government summoned the American ambassador because of Joe Biden's statements about Prime Minister Viktor Orbán last week, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on Tuesday in Budapest.
According to a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the head of the ministry was asked at a joint press conference with his Albanian counterpart about US President Joe Biden's comment that Viktor Orbán had declared that he did not believe in democracy.
In response to this, he stated: "We are not obliged to put up with such lies from anyone. Not even if that person is the President of the United States of America.”
"After this lie was told about the Hungarian prime minister, we asked the US ambassador to the ministry, who was also here today, he was received by Deputy Minister Levente Magyar, and we asked the ambassador to show us the quote with the place and time where the prime minister said this would have said," he informed.
"Obviously no such statement was made, so we could not get any meaningful answer"
he added.
Péter Szijjártó also reported that bilateral relations are extremely complicated by the ambassador's statement that the official American position is that "here in Hungary we are building a dictatorship", because this is not an insult to the government, but to the country.
"Because the prime minister and the government do not lead this country based on a random lottery, but based on the decision of the people. We have won four elections in a row and the people have chosen the direction of governance that we will carry out," he explained.
"So this is a very serious insult, we asked ourselves, we invited the ambassador, and this kind of thinking of the American president, government, democratic administration is a heavy burden on our bilateral relations"
he added.
Speaking about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's statement that the Hungarian government is playing a very dangerous game with Russia, the minister said that
what is dangerous is the war itself, because people die in fighting, and there is also the risk of escalation.
"And we don't want this war to spread further, since we live here in the neighborhood of the war, and if the war spreads, we would be directly endangered by it. Therefore, we will continue to do everything we can to ensure that there is peace in the neighborhood," he emphasized.
"From the point of view of the hope for peace, the meeting with President Donald Trump was particularly encouraging," he opined.
MTI
Photo: MTI/Péter Lakatos
