Hope for peace ‘lost’ if West-Russia communication channels dry up

If the West and Russia do not engage in talks but instead allow their communications channels to fade, “we are giving up even the hope for peace in the current awful situation”, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Moscow on Thursday.

According to a ministry statement, Szijjártó told a panel discussion at the Russia Energy Week that though his participation in the event as a European Union and NATO foreign minister was considered “out of the ordinary”, Hungary had not given up hope for peace being achieved in its neighbourhood in the shortest possible timeframe.

“The situation is terrible,” Szijjártó said. “People are dying and suffering, prices are sky high, inflation is at a record high, and we’re facing the first ever general global energy supply crisis.”

“As we know, the solution to this awful situation can be expressed in a single word, and that is ‘peace’,” he said, adding that Hungary had condemned the war from the start and urged a ceasefire and peace talks.

He said Hungary considered energy cooperation a purely physical matter, rather than an ideological or political one, arguing that “it’s impossible to heat homes and cook politically or ideologically.”

“It is therefore fully in our interest to maintain energy cooperation between Russia and Hungary,” Szijjártó said. “We’ve made it clear that we will not support any form of sanctions that endangered the security of our country’s energy supply.”

The minister underscored the importance of the operation of the TurkStream gas pipeline, saying it was crucial to avoid incidents like the sabotage of the Nord Stream offshore pipeline.