Hungary FM: European Leaders Are Doing Everything to Undermine Ukraine Peace Process

While the United States is working hard to bring the war in Ukraine to an end, Western European leaders are doing everything they can to undermine the peace process, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto said in Budapest on Tuesday.

Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto (Source: Facebook)

According to a statement issued by the ministry, responding to a journalist's question about the Berlin peace summit, Peter Szijjarto said that politics is a field shaped by experience. Over the past year, he noted, the situation has clearly shown that U.S. President Donald Trump has done everything possible to achieve a settlement in Ukraine, and that Russia's leadership has been willing to engage in talks, while Europeans have made every effort to undermine the peace process.

"We can remember when, after the summit in Alaska, they did not allow President Volodymyr Zelensky to go to Washington alone, but held his hand and sat there so that he would not end up agreeing to some kind of peace deal," he said.

And not only these experiences, but also yesterday's events in Brussels unfortunately confirm that Europeans are currently much more interested in continuing the war than in ending it, because if they truly wanted to end the war, they would not want to make an urgent decision to send eighty thousand billion forints, or more than two hundred billion euros, to Ukraine,

he pointed out. "Such a massive amount, a significant part of which they want to spend on arming Ukraine, suggests that Europeans want to prepare for a long-term war situation," he added.

Peter Szijjarto emphasized that this assessment is also backed by last week’s NATO foreign ministers meeting, where it was stated that even if peace is achieved, they are preparing for hostile relations with Russia.

 So for now, it seems that the division of labor remains the same as before. The Americans are doing everything they can to reach peace, while Western European leaders are doing everything they can to undermine the process,

he stressed. He also underlined that there is no need to be overly impressed by the Ukrainian president’s statement that his country would give up NATO membership, as this was never up to him in the first place and was never realistic, since decisions on NATO membership are made by the members of the military alliance.

"And it is perfectly clear that we are very, very far from any kind of consensus within NATO on this issue. In reality, Ukraine’s NATO membership has only been kept on the agenda by Ukraine itself, but this has no real relevance, because it is not up to them to decide," he concluded.

Cover photo: Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto (Source: Facebook)