David Pressman, the U.S. Ambassador to Hungary, is one of the leading figures of the Hungarian opposition, and his statements should be assessed accordingly, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in Brussels on Thursday.
“The U.S. ambassador in Budapest is an opposition activist and a leading figure in the Hungarian opposition, therefore, his statements should be assessed accordingly. And if I wanted to talk about the manifestation of his opposition activism, I could say that, interestingly, when the prime minister of Italy visited China and said that China was an inescapable dialogue partner in the current fragile international context, the opposition activist did not activate himself,” he said.
David Pressman has a long history of criticizing the Hungarian conservative government and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. He recently spoke out against Orbán’s peace mission, which involved visits to Moscow, Kyiv, Beijing, and Washington D.C.
Szijjártó was responding to Pressman’s criticism of the “peace mission,” stating that many world leaders and EU leaders seek cooperation with countries considered adversarial to U.S. and Western interests, such as China. In fact, U.S. State Department head, Anthony Blinken, routinely visits China. Such actions are a standard part of diplomacy, and as far as Orbán is concerned, signify an effort to bring the war to an end and establish peace.
“Nor when President Zelensky called Donald Trump, he did not express his disapproval, or when the Ukrainian Foreign Minister was last in China, we did not hear his criticism,” said Szijjártó.
“So obviously this was a statement inspired by an opposition stance,” he added.
