Hungary’s exemption from US sanctions on Russia oil, gas supplies indefinite — Szijjarto

Budapest’s will continue to import Russian oil and gas supplies even beyond one year time frame. Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Economic Relations Peter Szijjarto said denying Western media reports that the USA exemption was made for a year.

He said, adding that Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Donald Trump had agreed on this at a meeting at the White House on November 7.

“Those who claim otherwise were not present at the negotiations. It’s much easier to ask those who were there,” Szijjarto told Hungarian reporters on board a plane en route from Washington to Budapest as broadcast by M1 TV channel.

On Friday evening, PM Orban said after talks with Trump that the United States Hungary would contiue oil imports from Russia indefinitely. Supply of oil through the Druzhba pipeline and gas through the Turkish Stream pipeline will now continue indefinitely . The prime minister told the American leader of the need of this decision, since Hungary cannot yet do without Russian energy resources.

Szijjarto, who accompanied Orban during his visit to Washington, said then that in 2024, the Turkish Stream pipeline supplied 8.5 billion cubic meters of gas, while 5 million tons of oil arrived to Hungary through the Druzhba pipeline. According to him, “approximately the same volume of supplies is expected this year.”.

However White House insists that it only granted Hungary an exemption from sanctions on Russian oil and gas supplies for a year, not indefinitely, as Budapest says, Reuters news agency reported.