Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said on Tuesday that Hungary will continue to argue for peace in Ukraine despite all the attacks, criticism and fake news because the longer the war lasts, the more people will die.
Minister Szijjártó told the UN General Assembly during a discussion on Ukraine in New York that he was the representative of a nation that had been living next door to the war for 500 days, and had already paid a considerable price for the conflict with many ethnic Hungarians dying in the fights. For more than a year, international politics have been focused on what they think about the war, he said. It would be high time to talk also about what they think about peace and how it could be achieved, what the solution could be, he added. He said the answer should be sought “exclusively at the negotiating table and not on the battlefield”. “Those arguing for putting off the negotiations risk more people dying … and reconstruction to be longer and more expensive,” he said. He praised the efforts targeting peaceful settlement, citing efforts by the Vatican, Turkey, China and African states. Minister Szijjártó said that in all cases of armed conflicts in far-away locations, European Union members supported peaceful solutions and dialogue, but have gone a different way in the case of Ukraine. The minister added that it is time to “turn up the volume” of the voices of the global pro-peace majority. Minister Szijjártó said that Monday’s meeting of the UN Security Council had made it clear that the international community was grouped around two opposing approaches to the issue. Representatives of the transatlantic world „made speeches and statements yesterday that clearly signal that the war would carry on, and bring a clear risk of escalation,” Minister Szijjártó said.
Commenting on the collapse of the agreement allowing Ukraine to export grain through ports on its Russian-held Black Sea coast, Szijjártó said the agreement had been key to mitigating the conflict’s effects in “easily destabilising regions”. Central Europe’s role in grain transits is expected to grow, and Hungary has completed serious infrastructural improvements in good time, he said. Hungary is ready to allow grain transits to Africa and the Middle East to avoid a food crisis and the consequent new waves of migration from those regions. At the same time, it must be avoided that Ukrainian grain upends central European markets, “just because a neighbouring country doesn’t have to abide by EU regulations,” he said. Commenting on talks with company representatives, Szijjártó said US and German companies were “under a huge pressure, often amounting to blackmail”, to shun Hungary as an investment site. “The liberal US and German leadership do not agree with the direction the Hungarian people have set,” he said. “It is clear to see, however, that German and US companies are not phased by that, and investments from those countries are growing constantly … I hope to conclude agreements on a few US investments in Hungary today,” he added.