By JUSTIN SPIKE, Associated Press
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary’s top diplomat traveled to Russia on Monday to participate in a world forum on nuclear energy, underscoring his country’s persistently close ties with Moscow amid the war in Ukraine.
Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto gave a speech on the opening plenary session of the two-day ATOMEXPO international forum within the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, in response to the event’s website.
The forum, titled “Nuclear Spring,” is geared toward the worldwide nuclear industry and serves as a “business platform for discussing the present state of the nuclear industry and setting future trends,” the web site says.
In a post on Facebook early Monday, Szijjarto said his appearance on the expo would come with talks with the top of Russia’s state atomic energy company, Rosatom, over a planned Russia-backed expansion of Hungary’s only nuclear power plant. He said the project was “in Hungary’s national strategic and national security interests.”
Political Cartoons
“The worldwide energy crisis implies that it’s of unprecedented importance for a rustic to have the option to provide the energy it needs. The Paks nuclear power plant plays a key role in our energy security,” Szijjarto wrote.
The trip was the most recent sign of Hungary’s continuing diplomatic and trade ties with Russia which have confounded some European leaders because the war in Ukraine nears nine months. Szijjarto was last in Russia in October for natural gas negotiations with Russian state energy company Gazprom, a visit Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky called “scandalous” since a few of those present were “people who find themselves on a (European Union) sanctions list.”
Hungary’s government under populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban has pursued close diplomatic and economic ties with Moscow, and sought to guard its supply of Russian oil and gas — on which it’s heavily dependent — as other European countries have aimed to chop off their Russian energy imports to punish the Kremlin for its war in Ukraine.
Orban, considered Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally within the EU, has lobbied vigorously against EU sanctions on Moscow, arguing they’ve led to skyrocketing energy prices which might be hurting European economies greater than they’re Russia.
On Monday, Szijjarto insisted that “no sanctions of any kind can limit Hungary’s energy supply, since one among the fundamental principles of our country’s energy strategy is that the energy mix is an exclusive national competence,” in response to Hungarian state news agency MTI.
Last week, Szijjarto met with Rosatom chief Alexei Likhachev in Uzbekistan at a summit of the Organization of Turkic States to debate the Paks nuclear project, a 12 billion-euro ($12.3 billion) expansion involving the development of two recent nuclear reactors. The work is to be carried out by Rosatom and financed with a ten billion-euro ($10.2 billion) loan from a Russian state bank.
Orban and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on the project in 2014, however it has passed through quite a few delays and permit issues. Critics of the project say it makes Hungary more financially and politically dependence on Russia and poses environmental and safety risks.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material might not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
