'Concerning': State Department Denounces Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán's Meeting With Putin In Russia

3 months ago

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller was asked about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán meeting with Putin in Russia.

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Transcript

00:00some of the diplomacy. The Hungarian Prime Minister was recently in Kiev in

00:05Moscow and Beijing. Do you find anything productive about this? What's what's your

00:09take on it? No, not at all. We find it concerning in fact. Look, before he traveled to

00:14Russia you did see the Hungarian Prime Minister travel to Ukraine. We thought

00:19that was an important thing for him to do. We thought that was a productive step

00:23and we would welcome of course actual diplomacy with Russia to make it clear

00:30to Russia that they need to respect Ukraine's sovereignty, that they need to

00:34respect Ukraine's territorial integrity, but that is not at all what this is it

00:39appears to be. Could I follow up on one more? There's another visitor in Moscow

00:44today, Prime Minister Modi of India. India has a long-standing relationship

00:49with Russia. What do you think of the timing of this right before the NATO

00:51summit? Yeah, so again we did just see Modi, like Orban, meet with President

00:56Zelensky. We thought that was an important step to take and we would

01:00urge India, as we do any country when it engages with Russia, to make

01:04clear that any resolution to the conflict in Ukraine needs to be one that

01:12respects the UN Charter, respects Ukraine's territorial integrity, Ukraine's

01:16sovereignty, and you know India is a strategic partner with whom we engage in

01:23a full and frank dialogue and that includes our concerns about the

01:27relationship with Russia. Mr. King your answer to the Orban question. I mean it's

01:35okay and it's good and productive for him to go to see Zelensky in Kiev, but

01:39it's concerning and bad that he goes to see Putin in Kiev? Is it only the timing? Because there are plenty of people who are going to see him.

01:46If you listen to the answer that I, my full answer, it's we

01:52welcome people engaging with Russia about the war in Ukraine if they make

01:55clear to Russia that Russia needs to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity

02:00and sovereignty and that goes to the fact that there is a difference between

02:03Ukraine and Russia. There's a difference between engaging with Ukraine and Russia

02:07because one side is the aggressor and one side is the victim. So of course

02:10there we look at their engagement with those two countries differently. Well yeah but okay so you know for sure that he didn't make those things clear?

02:19We have seen no indication that that is, including his public statements. And you think that Prime Minister Modi made clear to President Putin?

02:26As I just said we... Do you think that President Erdogan has made clear? So I will look to Prime Minister Modi's public remarks to see what he talked about but as I said we made quite clear

02:38directly with India our concerns about their relationship with Russia and so we

02:42would hope India and any other country when they engage with Russia would make

02:47clear that Russia should respect the UN Charter, should respect Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

02:52And what's the problem with Orban going to Suu Kyi? I didn't, I wasn't asked about that. I was asked about it. I was asked about it. You were asked about that.

03:02I missed that part of the question. No? It was not part of your question? Yeah. I totally missed the she part I was talking about.

03:12So there's no, so you don't have a problem with... I don't have any comment. We understand that countries engage with China.

03:17We, as you know, Secretary Blinken has talked twice about President Xi.

03:21Just to follow up briefly on the Modi part of that. You said that the US has dialogued with India about concerns about their relationship with Russia.

03:28Were there concerns expressed prior to Modi's visit or has there been any dialogue before that?

03:32We have long made clear those concerns. I mean specifically about the trip to Bosnia?

03:36I'm not aware of any conversations specifically about this trip in advance of the trip.

'Concerning': State Department Denounces Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán's Meeting With Putin In Russia

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