During an official visit to the United States, Hungary’s foreign minister has met with a succession of government officials.
Péter Szijjártó discussed the opportunity to diversify Hungary’s gas imports with United States Secretary of Energy Rick Perry in Washington on Wednesday.
According to MTI, Minister Szijjártó asked Perry to intercede with ExxonMobil with the aim of starting offshore production in Romania with Austrian partner OMV. The minister said if Hungary can buy gas from fields in the Black Sea, it would be a significant opportunity to diversify the country’s gas supply.
Minister Szijjártó said Hungary has taken all necessary steps in the interest of reducing its dependence on gas from Russia, practically the country’s only foreign source of supply at present. He added that the next step toward diversification depends on one of Hungary’s NATO allies and on a fellow European Union member states.
The minister also met with Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Wess Mitchell, as well as a number of visiting foreign ministers, among them Ivica Dacic from Serbia, Mevlut Cavusoglu from Turkey, Pavlo Klimkin from Ukraine, Igor Crnadak from Bosnia, Mohammed Ali al-Hakim from Iraq and Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa from Bahrain.