Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s “working meeting” with US President Donald Trump in Washington, DC, on May 13 will be “momentous”, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told a press conference in Brussels on Thursday.
The Hungarian government received the official invitation on Wednesday, and it has already confirmed it, the minister said.
The talks will touch on the region’s security, energy supply, the two countries’ bilateral ties and defence cooperation, he said.
“Hungary, of course, sees the US as a strategic partner. Our views are on many issues similar to that of the current US administration. We think similarly about migration, the protection of Christianity and security,” he said.
The US is also Hungary’s most important exports market outside the EU, Szijjártó added.
Meanwhile, asked about reports that the EU ignored the Hungarian government’s last-minute veto of the EU position regarding Israel at the UN Security Council on Monday — going ahead with a statement of its common position regardless — Szijjártó said a fair and balanced position should be maintained.
Hungary, he added, would not aid the adoption of any document that does not help to solve the Middle East crisis. Every word, he said, counted and the text had been constantly evolving.
Since various changes had not made it to the final document, Hungary withheld its approval of the common position, the minister said.
Szijjártó said the Finnish ambassador to the UN had correctly stated at the beginning of his speech that the declaration was that of 27 countries rather than the position of the community, but then he spoke on behalf of the EU as a whole, “which was wrong and unacceptable”.
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