Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said that although it has been acknowledged at a meeting of the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council that the global majority wants peace in Ukraine as soon as possible, most member states continue to push for a military solution to the war.
Speaking in Luxembourg on Monday, Minister Szijjártó said the war continues to claim many lives, and the possibility of increasingly grave natural disasters is rising. He added that the danger of nuclear accidents is now being talked about more and more openly. “All of these facts prove that there is no solution to this war on the battlefield,” Minister Szijjártó said. “We’ve been saying this for a very long time, and unfortunately I have to tell you that the daily tragic developments are proving us right. This war cannot be resolved on the battlefield, only through negotiations,” Minister Szijjártó said. “But in spite of this, it, unfortunately, became clear again at today’s Foreign Affairs Council meeting that the vast majority of member states and the European Union itself insists on a military solution.” “Although, after sixteen months, it has been acknowledged at the Council meeting that the global majority wants immediate peace, despite this acknowledgement, they continue to urge a military solution in the European Union,” the minister said. Minister Szijjártó said those who favored a solution to the war on the battlefield over a diplomatic settlement bore responsibility for the growing casualties and natural disasters, which he said would increase the price of reconstruction likely to be spearheaded by Europe. But, he said, serious questions needed to be put on the agenda before any decision was made about how reconstruction would be financed and how it would affect the development funding of member states.
On another note, Minister Szijjártó noted a fresh report by the Venice Commission declaring that Ukraine failed to meet its obligations regarding the rights of national minorities. He said Ukraine had been curtailing the rights of national minority communities since 2015. He called Ukraine’s decision to delay the changes to the operations of minority schools “propaganda”, arguing that this offered no solution to the situation of ethnic Hungarian schools. If Ukraine fails to restore the rights of the ethnic Hungarian community in Transcarpathia, it will not be ready to start accession talks with the EU, “and we won’t be able to give our support, either”, Minister Szijjártó said. Hungary expects Ukraine to meet the EU requirements and obligations enshrined in international treaties on guaranteeing the rights of minority communities, he said. Meanwhile, Minister Szijjártó said Hungary would never approve sanctions that would render the operations of its own nuclear industry impossible.
In response to a question, Minister Szijjártó said Hungary had monitored this past weekend’s conflict between Russia’s Wagner mercenary group and the military leadership closely so that the government could act in a timely fashion if necessary. Minister Szijjártó said he spoke by phone on Saturday with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov as well as with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov who had briefed him on the situation and likely developments, adding that both officials had turned out to be correct. He said he had also been in contact with Belarusian Foreign Minister Sergei Aleinik, who had briefed him late in the afternoon on a phone call between Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin which eventually resolved the situation. “So, long before the fact of the agreement or the resolution of the situation became public, my Belarusian counterpart had informed me about it,” Minister Szijjártó said. He added that he had simultaneously kept the prime minister updated about the situation.