After taking over the six-month rotating Presidency of the European Council, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday morning for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Prime Minister's Press Secretary Bertalan Havasi, told MTI from the Ukrainian capital.
The main agenda point of the discussion is the possibility of building peace. Viktor Orban and Volodymyr Zelensky are also discussing current issues in Hungarian-Ukrainian bilateral relations,
the press chief said.
Ahead of the meeting, as reported by Magyar Nemzet earlier, Zelensky sent a message to Hungary on his social media page on the Hungarian EU presidency.
"Congratulations to Hungary on taking over the Presidency of the EU, " Volodymyr Zelensky began his post on X, wishing the Hungarian EU Presidency effectiveness in "promoting our shared European values, goals and interests".
The Ukrainian leader added:
While advancing on its path to the EU, Ukraine is ready to contribute to these efforts and strengthen our Europe.
Our newspaper also reported earlier that a Kyiv meeting between Viktor Orban and Vladymyr Zelensky was likely to happen soon.
An Orban-Zelensky meeting is long overdue, we wrote in a previous article. Deputy Foreign Minister Levente Magyar told Magyar Nemzet in an interview at the end of last year that as part of the preparations for the meeting, Hungary had set the condition that the parties should first agree on the manner of settling the bilateral disputes on the table.
We haven't reached that point yet, so a meeting would not be timely, but we are working on it. The Ukrainians have taken some steps to redress our grievances,
the foreign affairs deputy minister said in the interview back in December.
The fact that the protection of the minority rights of the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia has finally become an official part of Ukraine's accession process, and the Hungarian government has achieved a European-level guarantee for the protection of the Hungarian community there may serve as a step forward.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto recently said that all Hungarian conditions have been included in the framework document of the EU accession negotiations with Ukraine.
Cover photo: Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban (left) talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (second from left) at the EU Summit on June 27, 2024 (Photo: AFP/Ludovic Marin)
