Steven N.
It’s not embarrassing that Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, received the Order of Friendship from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov last December, said Tamás Menczer, the ministry’s state secretary for communications (pictured).
Speaking on ATV’s Egyenes Beszéd program, Menczer said that Minister Szijjártó was working to restore peace and represent the interests of Hungarians in Transcarpathia.
The State Secretary said that he had not talked to Szijjártó about possibly returning the award, but added:
If the Foreign Minister finds time along with all of the other things he has to do, I’m sure he’ll think about it.
Menczer also said on the program that the Hungarian government was not permitting arms shipments to travel to Ukraine through the country because it could endanger convoys carrying humanitarian aid to the war-torn region. On Monday, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán suggested that weapons shipments could put ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia in harm’s way.
When asked whether the government was rethinking the Russian-led expansion of the Paks II nuclear power plant project, Menczer did not answer directly, but said that Hungarians should not have to pay the price of war, and that the country’s energy supply should not be part of the sanctions against Russia.
According to State Secretary Tamás Menczer, it’s not Hungary’s dependence on Russian gas that is dangerous, but rather utility prices going up by hundreds of thousands of forints for Hungarian families. [RTL]
