Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto is in Washington, discussing the lifting of some anti-Russian sanctions. On February 19, he met with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
“Naturally, we touched upon the issue of the sanctions that were imposed by the [U.S.] Biden administration and that are harming Hungary’s energy security,” he said, in an interview with the M1 television company. “It is clear for us that the future of the sanction policy depends on how soon and which way the war in Ukraine ends. The sooner this war is stopped, the sooner international life gets back to normal and the sooner we will be able to get rid of various sanctions,” he stressed.
“Obviously, a situation when international politics is reduced to sanctions cannot be considered normal. So, we will probably leave sanction regimes in the past,” Szijjarto added. The sanctions against Russia imposed by the Biden Administration have affected Hungary; it imports most of its oil and gas from Russia, and is building its Paks-2 Nuclear Power Plant in cooperation with Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear engineering firm.
