Budapest will never agree to the imposition of sanctions on Russian nuclear energy, as it would render impossible the development of Hungary's own nuclear industry, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Monday
BUDAPEST (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th June, 2023) Budapest will never agree to the imposition of sanctions on Russian nuclear energy, as it would render impossible the development of Hungary's own nuclear industry, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Monday.
"Today, some countries again urged sanctions in the nuclear sphere. It seems that this story will never end, but everyone within and outside the European Union can know that Hungary would not and will not ever agree to sanctions that would make its own nuclear industry impossible," Szijjarto told Hungarian reporters at a briefing broadcast on social media.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said following a Bratislava-hosted meeting with his Visegrad Four counterparts that Budapest had no plans to change its foreign policy on the situation in Ukraine.
"Hungary seeks foreign policy cooperation with EU member states, but we also have a sovereign foreign policy," he said at the meeting with prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia.
In late January, Szijjarto stated that Budapest would not support any sanctions restricting energy cooperation with Russia, since Moscow was taking part in the construction of new units for Hungary's only nuclear power plant. Moscow and Budapest signed a pact in 2014 on the construction of two advanced reactors, in addition to the four existing reactors of the Paks NPP. Russian nuclear agency Rosatom said in February that the construction was set to begin in 2024.
Since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict, Hungary has consistently opposed sanctions on Russian energy carriers and supplies of weapons to Ukraine. In March 2022, the Hungarian parliament issued a decree banning arms deliveries to Ukraine from Hungarian territory. Szijjarto explained that Budapest was seeking to shore up the security of Ukraine's Zakarpattia Region, home to a large ethnically Hungarian community on bilateral, whereas transit of arms through its territory would make it a legitimate military target for Russia.
