Szijjarto: International diplomacy has gained strength since Hungarian ‘peace mission’

He said China’s foreign minister and the US secretary of state had held talks at a recent ASEAN forum, and the Russian foreign minister had also spoken with his South Korean counterpart.

“It would be good if the Europeans also noticed this, but it appears that understanding is slower here.” the minister said.

Szijjarto said Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski was “also sticking to provocation”, adding that he was “used to this”, as they sit next to each other in EU Foreign Affairs Council meetings.

He added, however, that Sikorski had “crossed another line by lying” when he had said that the Hungarian foreign minister had backed his “nonsensical proposal” for the next informal meeting of EU foreign ministers to be held in Ukraine.

Szijjarto said that in reality he had immediately objected to the proposal at the meeting, adding that there would not be a Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Ukraine.

“And we’ll continue working on restoring the long-term security of our oil supply,” he said, adding that on Monday morning he had again spoken with his Russian and Slovak counterparts, Sergey Lavrov and Juraj Blanar.

Szijjarto said he maintained that Ukraine was in breach of its association agreement with the EU by “endangering the security of our energy supply”.

He said they were constantly analysing the possible legal and technical solutions that “guarantee our unimpeded oil supply regardless of the Ukrainian transit ban”.