EU state blasts Biden’s ‘dictatorship’ remarks

Hungary is not going to tolerate such accusations coming from the US, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said

Budapest has protested the claim by US President Joe Biden that the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban seeks to establish a “dictatorship.” Hungary will not tolerate such “lies,” Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told journalists on Tuesday.

Biden made his comments last Friday, during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania. Earlier in the day, Orban had visited Donald Trump, the previous US president and Biden’s presumptive rival in the upcoming election, at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

Orban “stated flatly that he doesn’t think democracy works, he’s looking for dictatorship,” Biden claimed in his speech.

On Tuesday, Szijjarto told reporters that Hungary’s government head had never said anything even close to those words. He also revealed that Budapest had Washington’s ambassador over the matter.

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“We asked the ambassador to show us the quote, with the place and date, where the prime minister has said what the president of the United States attributed to him. Obviously, no such statement was made, so we could receive no substantive response,” the Hungarian minister said.

Budapest was “not obliged to tolerate such lies from anyone, even if that person happens to be the president of the United States of America,” Szijjarto added. 

The US embassy confirmed that envoy David Pressman was summoned for an “urgent” meeting by the Hungarian foreign ministry on Tuesday. 

“Ambassador Pressman always welcomes the opportunity to discuss the state of Hungary’s democracy with our ally,” a spokesperson told AFP in an emailed statement.

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Following his meeting with Trump, Orban praised the former US leader as “the president of peace” and said that his return to the White House would be “better” for the world. He added that it was still up to the Americans to decide who would be their next president.

The Hungarian prime minister also said he was proud that his nation was one of those seeking peace as well. Hungary has been consistently calling for a diplomatic solution to the ongoing conflict between Kiev and Moscow as well as criticizing other Western nations for sending weapons to Ukraine. It has also maintained economic ties with Russia and called the EU sanctions against Moscow “counterproductive.”