Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Péter Szijjártó responded to criticism of the peace mission by describing US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman as a leading figure in the Hungarian opposition.
Szijjártó issued the statement in Brussels, saying numerous global leaders and EU officials are keen to collaborate with nations deemed unfriendly to US and Western interests, such as China, while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken regularly visits China. He affirmed such diplomatic activities are typical and, according to Viktor Orbán, represent efforts to bring an end to the conflict and foster peace.
“The U.S. ambassador in Budapest is an opposition activist and a leading figure in the Hungarian opposition, therefore, his statements should be assessed accordingly. And if I wanted to talk about the manifestation of his opposition activism, I could say that, interestingly, when the prime minister of Italy visited China and said that China was an inescapable dialogue partner in the current fragile international context, the opposition activist did not activate himself,” Szijjártó said.
“Nor when President Zelensky called Donald Trump, he did not express his disapproval, or when the Ukrainian Foreign Minister was last in China, we did not hear his criticism. So obviously this was a statement inspired by an opposition stance,” he added.
Pressman has a long history of criticising the Hungarian conservative government and Prime Minister Orbán. Recently, he spoke out against Orbán’s peace mission, which included visits to Moscow, Kyiv, Beijing, and Washington.
