Szijjarto: ‘The sooner there is peace, the more lives can be saved’

He said that the “pro-war mainstream” had mounted a heavy attack on the Hungarian prime minister over remarks he delivered at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha earlier in the day.

In his speech, Viktor Orbán called for a ceasefire and peace talks instead of escalating the war in Ukraine. Hungary’s viewpoint of the war differs from that of the European mainstream because it is a neighbour of Ukraine, which has a sizeable Hungarian minority, Orban said in a discussion with Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait. Many of those Hungarians have lost their lives in the war, he added. “This war is the failure of diplomacy. It should have never happened,” he said.

Szijjarto, in a post on Facebook, said that “the past several months have proven unfortunately that there will be only losers, no winners of the war next door”. “The longer this war drags on, the greater number of losers it is going to have,” he added.

Szijjarto called saving lives the most important immediate task and urged for help to be provided which he said was impossible without peace.

“The sooner there is peace, the more lives can be saved,” he said, adding that “the prime minister spoke clearly which is obviously unpleasant for those who support war”.