According to Szijjarto, since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, Budapest has drawn red lines — one of them is that it is necessary to "do our best and utmost in order to avoid any form of direct confrontation between NATO and Russia."
"So in case Ukraine becomes a member of NATO, that would mean a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia. And that would mean Third World War. We just simply want to avoid that. This is [why] for us it's a non-existing issue on the agenda," Szijjarto said.
According to the minister, most of his colleagues from NATO countries, in conversations with Ukrainian representatives, talk about Kiev's possible accession to the alliance, but in a closed circle they admit that this is impossible.
In early October, the new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte visited Kiev. During the visit, he said that the day would come when Ukraine would become a full member of NATO, and Russia would not have a veto on this issue. At the same time, the secretary general did not name any timeframe for a possible invitation to Ukraine to NATO, which requires a unanimous decision by all members of the alliance. Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Ukraine's possible membership in NATO was a threat to Russia's security. He emphasized that the risks of Kiev joining the alliance were one of the reasons for the launch of the special military operation.
Szijjarto on Russia's New Nuclear Doctrine: No Risks If Conflict in Ukraine Ends
Peter Szijjarto commented on the change in Russia's nuclear doctrine, stating that the risks outlined in it would not exist if the conflict in Ukraine ended.
Szijjarto said that events of this kind were basically arguments in favor of the Hungarian position on the need for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine, since if it ends, then such risks can be eliminated.
According to the minister, the international community should pay much more attention to finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict, since it definitely does not have a solution on the battlefield.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban earlier said at an international press conference in the European Parliament that Ukraine would not be able to win on the battlefield and called on it to negotiate.
Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier proposed discussing the issue of updating the principles of state policy in the field of nuclear deterrence at a meeting of the Russian Security Council's standing conference on nuclear deterrence. Putin said that Russia reserved the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression, including if the enemy, using conventional weapons, created a critical threat to sovereignty. He added that it was proposed to consider aggression by a non-nuclear state with the participation of a nuclear state as their joint attack on the Russian Federation.
Earlier, Vladimir Putin put forward initiatives for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine: Moscow will immediately cease fire and declare its readiness for negotiations after the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the territory of new regions of Russia. In addition, Kiev should declare its renunciation of its intentions to join NATO and carry out demilitarization and denazification, as well as adopt a neutral, non-aligned and non-nuclear status. Putin also mentioned the lifting of sanctions against Russia.
Szijjarto Not Ruling Out 'Neighboring Country's' Interference in 2022 Elections in Hungary
Peter Szijjarto said he did not rule out that a "neighboring country" could have participated in interference in the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary elections.
"I am not quite sure that the country led by the president you have mentioned [Volodymyr Zelensky] was not part of it [interference in the 2022 elections in Hungary]," Szijjarto said.
He added that he was talking about a "neighboring country."
In response to a clarifying question about whether he would rule out the possibility that a "neighboring country" could have played a role in interfering in the Hungarian elections, the minister said: "We can't exclude it. At that time, there were signs for that. But since we won, you know, they lose their significance, I might say."
In late March 2022, Szijjarto stated that then-Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba had called the Ukrainian embassy in Budapest to discuss the possibility of influencing the election results.
US Entities Made Efforts to Interfere in 2022 Hungarian Elections
US-based entities made serious efforts to interfere in the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary elections, spending millions of dollars on this, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said.
"All I know is during our election campaign back in 2022, there were very serious attempts to interfere into our elections. From the other side of the ocean — very, very heavily, let's put it that way," Szijjarto said.
According to the minister, very powerful interference was carried out, with many millions of dollars being spent by American entities to remove the current Hungarian government.
Despite these very large investments in the opposition, the Fidesz party led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban won by a large margin, he recalled.
He pointed out that the funds were invested in the Hungarian opposition, in opposition media.
"This still has been going on," he concluded.
Earlier, the Magyar Nemzet newspaper, citing a preliminary report from the Hungarian State Audit Office, reported that the coalition of six opposition parties in the parliamentary elections in Hungary in April 2022 had received at least 4.6 million euros from abroad.
Former Hungarian Prime Minister candidate from the united opposition, Peter Marki-Zay, said in a podcast for the Magyar Hang newspaper that in mid-June, several months after the elections, the opposition coalition had received support from the United States in the amount of "hundreds of millions" of forints, with which they were able to pay "the last bills of the (election) campaign." He noted that the money had come from the American foundation Action for Democracy. According to Marki-Zay, about 100 million forints (more than 280 thousand dollars) will remain with the opposition out of the total campaign amount of "several billion."
Magyar Hang notes that Action for Democracy is a non-governmental organization created in the United States in early 2022, whose advisory board includes, among others, historian Timothy Garton Ash, journalist Anne Applebaum and political scientist Francis Fukuyama. The president and director of the organization is David Koranyi, diplomatic adviser to the mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karacsony, an active member of the opposition coalition.
The Fidesz-Christian Democratic People's Party (Fidesz-KDNP) alliance led by Prime Minister Orban won the parliamentary elections in Hungary, getting 135 seats out of 199 in the National Assembly and maintaining a constitutional majority for the third time in a row. A coalition of six opposition parties led by Marky-Zay won 57 seats. Of the remaining seven seats, six went to the right-wing Our Homeland movement and one to the German National List. Following the elections, the Hungarian parliament re-elected Orban as prime minister of the country, he is leading the government for the fifth time.