Szijjarto: Stigmatising country for keeping diplomatic channels open ‘unacceptable’

The ministry cited Szijjarto as saying in New York that the current Russian presidency of the UN Security Council had convened a meeting on the global security situation, and he would address the meeting on behalf of Hungary which has been living in the shadow of the war in Ukraine for two and a half years.

He said thousands of people were dying in the neighbouring country and there was a threat of the danger of destruction, plus the conflict carried a long-term risk for the reformation of blocs in the world and the return of the Cold War era. Hungary, he added, had already lost out on such a situation once and did not want to get in the same situation again.

“I have been a foreign minister for nearly ten years and during these ten years attended numerous EU meetings where we discussed wars and armed conflicts taking place in various parts of the world, usually far away from Europe, and every time the European Union, European counterparts, the Brussels bureaucrats, and the high representative for foreign affairs stated in an arrogant and scornful manner that everyone must be called on to restore peace, lay down their arms, and everyone must be called on to find a peaceful solution to the war conflict,” he said.

Currently, however, in the case of the war in Ukraine, “the EU, the European bureaucrats and leaders argue for the direct opposite”, he said.

“Not only do they not want peace talks, not only do they continually sharpen the conflict and not only do they not consider escalation a danger, but when someone talks about peace and calls for talks, they immediately brand them ‘a Putin puppet, a spy of the Russians, a Kremlin’s propagandist, a Trojan horse’, etc.,” Szijjarto said.

He also lamented that they questioned the legitimacy of using diplomatic channels, which he said was unacceptable.

“It is unacceptable in the 21st century that someone should be stigmatised in Europe, America and the transatlantic community for arguing in support of keeping a given country’s diplomatic channels open … because a given country pursues diplomatic talks in the interest of peace,” he said.

He also said that recent years had demonstrated that Europe was following the wrong path in terms of its leaders having practically given up on the possibility of an independent strategy concerning the war and instead copying the American strategy, disregarding all considerations of their own.

Szijjarto said the continent had consequently found itself having to live in the shadow of the danger of war, with the risk of escalation being extremely high.

“It is high time for Europe to go its own way in terms of the war in Ukraine,” he said. “It is high time for Europe to have its strategy for peace, because the war is under way in Europe, with Europeans dying and a European country standing on the verge of destruction, so the madness must be stopped at this point.”

If the situation did not change, the war would get out of control and the risk of escalation would be “dramatically higher”, Szijjarto said.

The UN has been established exactly for the purpose of ensuring that everyone could talk to each other, even in case they were enemies, he added.

“In light of this, the European efforts to ban certain countries from maintaining talks with the Russians, the Belarusians and the Chinese under the auspices of the UN was totally unacceptable,” he said.

“Europe must return to the grounds of common sense and the path of diplomatic solutions; the legitimacy of the use of diplomatic channels must be given back, and diplomatic channels must be reopened with Russia, while simultaneously talks must be held with the Ukrainians because this could be the only solution to the war,” he said.