Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said the cooperation between Hungary and Turkey is a real success story.
Minister Szijjártó said on Facebook during the summit of the Organization of Turkic States in Shusha, in Azerbaijan, that trade between Hungary and Turkey had exceeded 4 billion dollars, breaking a new record, last year. “Our cooperation with Turkey contributes to the security of Hungary’s energy supplies, Hungary having become the first neighbouring country with Turkey this year where Turkey exports natural gas,” he said. Hungary’s natural gas supplies could not be guaranteed without the reliable transit role of the TurkStream pipeline and Turkey, with some 6 billion cubic metres of natural gas arriving by this route to Hungary last year and continued reliable supplies this year, he said. He said consultations were ongoing on the expansion of energy cooperation to include crude oil extraction and nuclear energy. Szijjártó said that “during our European Union presidency we plan to call a meeting of the Turkey-EU Association Council, and in order to further develop trade cooperation we would like to renew the EU customs union with Turkey and make progress in the area of visa simplification”.