Péter Szijjártó gave an interview to CNN: Hungary’s gas supply is not a political issue but a physical one
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó is in New York, where he gave an interview to Richard Quest on CNN.
The presenter asked Péter Szijjártó that Hungary is one of the countries that is willing to pay the price of gas in rubles through Gazprom Bank instead of the euro.
Péter Szijjártó said in this connection: a country’s gas or oil supply is not a philosophical, communication, ideological or political issue, but a physical one. In fact, we are defined by infrastructure: 85% of our gas supply and 65% of our oil supply comes from Russia. Why is that? Because this is the infrastructure you need. This is not for fun, we did not choose this situation, it is simply the physical situation in Central Europe. There are no alternative gases, no alternative transport routes that will allow the ten sources to get rid of Russian oil and Russian gas in the few years ahead. We have done a lot for diversification, we have built all the gas interconnectors from the seven neighboring countries, so a new source of gas is being explored somewhere nearby, we would be happy to buy gas from there. If ExxonMobil had made the final decision to produce gas from the Black Sea in Romania, we would be in a much better position now. But since no new source of gas has emerged and no new gas fields have been discovered in recent years, we have no choice but to rely on Russian energy sources for the next few years. But once again, this is not for fun, but these are the physical possibilities of our country. “
therefore, the Foreign Minister also talks about why he does not transport weapons and send soldiers to Hungary. “When it comes to NATO and arms transfers, I want to make it very clear that Hungary stands for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. We help Ukraine a lot on the humanitarian side, Hungary has had the largest humanitarian operation ever, and we have so far received 640,000 refugees from the territory of Ukraine, for whom we provide care, accommodation, work and whatever we can. And for arms shipments, it has become clear that we do not transport weapons and do not allow weapons to pass through Hungary.
He added that if you look at the EU features as well as the NATO signs, you can see that not all of them, not all EU weapons as well as weapons with NATO membership.
“The truth is that we need to see what the Hungarian government ‘s most important duty is now: we need to make sure that we can guarantee the security of Hungary and the Hungarian people. And from arms transfers to arms transfers through Hungary, we run the risk of drifting into the conflict we want to avoid, or the situation where the Russians are shooting at the Ukrainian-Hungarian border or the areas in Ukraine where Hungarians live. . That’s something to avoid, and that’s why we’ve made it clear that we’re not carrying weapons, but we’re standing up for Ukraine and carrying out the biggest humanitarian operation in our history to help the Ukrainian people. “
Regarding the letter of conditionality from Brussels, Szijjártó said that this is a political debate. This is blackmail against Hungary. These are false accusations, they have nothing to do with reality. You know, I think it’s very visible – the day when this procedure was initiated against Hungary, followed the elections in Hungary only a day or two ago, where we again won a landslide. Record support for the government after 12 years in office. We have never had so many representatives, we have a constitutional majority on our own, we see that the liberal mainstream in Brussels cannot digest this. The truth is that people support what we do. And if we need what people support, it means that it is a clear and true democracy. So all these accusations against us are purely political, it’s not about the rule of law, it’s blackmail against Hungary, it’s clear and unambiguous. “
Finally, the relationship between the President of Ukraine and the Government of Ukraine with Hungary was discussed. The Foreign Minister said that some on behalf of the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian government had tried to intervene in the Hungarian elections. And the statements made by President Zelensky at the very end of the election campaign were quite hostile, they were not at all appropriate, according to Siyakoto. You shouldn’t have done that.
You can watch the full interview here: