FM unveils harsh past exchanges with State Department
December 23rd, 2016In an interview with the ATV television website, Foreign Minister Péter Szíjjártó said Hungary has been regularly under heavy pressure from the US State Department and he had unpleasant personal exchanges with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland with both of them speaking at the top of their voice.
In an interview with ATV television reporter Ildikó Csuhaj, a former leading reporter at Népszabadság, Mr Szíjjártó said he was convinced that under President Trump Hungary will not be singled out for being regularly reprimanded. Recalling his first meeting with Mrs Nuland, he said the US Assistant Secretary of State tossed two pages on the table saying relations would improve if the measures described there were to be taken. A shouting argument followed as he said those were matters, including the composition of the Constitutional Court, the Media Law or the Electoral Law of no concern for the United States, as Hungary was a member of the European Union and settles its divergences within its own integration, rather than with others. Mr Szíjjártó also said he expected Prime Minister Orbán to pay his first official visit to Washington in many years in 2017.