Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó discussed the possibility of lifting some energy sanctions against Russia during a meeting in Washington on Wednesday with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
According to Szijjártó, they agreed that the sooner the conflict in Ukraine is resolved, the sooner these sanctions will be lifted.
“Of course, we raised the issue of the sanction measures that were taken by the Biden administration and that harm Hungary's energy security,“ Szijjártó said in an interview with M1 TV, describing the results of the meeting with Bessent.
“It is clear to us that the future of sanctions policy is closely linked to how quickly and in what way "The war in Ukraine is over. The sooner the war in Ukraine is over, the sooner international political life will normalize and the sooner we will be able to get rid of various sanctions," the Foreign Minister said.
“It is obvious that it is not normal for international politics to be primarily concerned with sanctions. So perhaps we will be able to leave the sanctions regimes in the past“, Szijjártó emphasized.
The US energy sanctions imposed in recent months on the Biden administration have dealt a serious blow to Hungary, which still relies heavily on Russia for its oil and gas and is building the Rosatom-designed Paks II nuclear power plant.
In the second half of November 2024 The United States imposed sanctions on Gazprombank, which handled payments between Hungary and Russia for oil, gas and the construction of the second stage of the Paks nuclear power plant. Moscow and Budapest had to look for alternative payment methods. Szijjártó said at the time that Hungary viewed the US sanctions on Gazprombank not only as a hostile move but also as “political revenge” by the Biden administration against some countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
On January 10, the Biden administration announced a wide-ranging package of sanctions against the Russian oil and gas sector. Sanctions were imposed on Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegaz, Gazprom LNG Portovaya and Novatek’s Kryogaz-Vysotsk. The sanctions also affected 183 tankers, traders, oilfield service companies, executives of several oil companies, representatives of the Russian Ministry of Energy and Rosatom, including the state corporation's CEO Alexei Likhachev.