Commentary: On gas and peace - Péter Szijjártó to Moscow

 

 

By Simó Endre (President of the Hungarian Community for Peace)

Budapest, 11 October 2022

 

Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó intends to discuss the security of Hungary's energy supply and peace in Moscow this week.

Until now, the Orbán government has claimed that our country's energy supply is secured, and the Western sanctions have also failed to take effect. So why the tour? Would even more security be needed? Is that never enough? Or would it not only be about energy supply? Would our government perhaps begin to realize that security is not only necessary for us, but also for others?

We would have finally come to the realization that neither the issue of energy supply nor war would have arisen if NATO, including Hungary, had recognized Russia's right to the security of its borders and had said yes to the proposal of December 15, 2021 on the creation of a European security and cooperation system? Instead of saying no to it along with our NATO allies?

Would we begin to recognize who wants peaceful cooperation and who doesn't? Wasn't it because of the blowing up of North Stream pipelines or of the Kerch bridge that our leaders became enlightened? Or did the planned and foiled blast of the Turkish Stream pipeline supplying gas also to Hungary on September 22 cause alarm in government circles so fearing the well-being of our people?

We even distance ourselves from the mere suspicion that our flying diplomat's new desire to travel was triggered by Russian missiles as proof that there is no stalemate on the Ukrainian front, but that the fate of the Kiev regime depends solely on Moscow, which we must love even if we hate it from the bottom of our hearts. Simply because we were ordered to love it from Washington and Brussels.

We need gas, but not peace? Because our allies say we shouldn't? Are we worried about hungarian minority in Transcarpathia, but do we condemn the right of self-determination of Russians in Ukraine? We call the Russian intervention in Ukraine aggression, but do we turn a blind eye to the fact that instead of implementing the Minsk agreement, the Russians in Donbas were exterminated by the thousands? And our compatriots living over there are being used as cannon fodder, since in Kyiv's eyes they are not natives anyway?

Crazy in Buda Castle!

It seems that in the midst of the never-ending "Kállay double dance", the ground is getting hot under our masters' feet! They should decide what to do. But they don't dare. Their pockets are pulling West, but our peaceful future is East! So they travel, because on the road is the best. However, it is not Moscow that needs to be convinced of the importance of peaceful cooperation, but our own allies, who fill our neighbors with weapons and see us as a map. If we couldn't make ourselves understood by them, we should finally realize that we don't need "friends" who won't let us live in peace with others, but those who can be happy if we live on good terms with everyone, East and West alike.