Magyar: Szijjártó has been found, he is at Foreign Ministry destroying documents related to Russia
Photo: Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs (Getty Images)
Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó is currently at the Foreign Ministry, where he is destroying documents related to sanctions against Russia using shredders, states the leader of Hungary’s Tisza party, Péter Magyar, during a press conference.
"They are shredding documents, and it won’t help them — but this is just to give you an idea of the situation in Hungary," Magyar emphasized.
The leader of Tisza compared this to attempts to destroy state archives "just like in the old communist days."
What preceded this
Hungarian media drew attention to Szijjártó’s absence from the public sphere after the elections, in which Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was defeated.
Journalists reported that Hungary’s foreign minister was not by Orbán’s side during his public concession of defeat. In addition, Szijjártó has shown no activity on social media for more than 16 hours. His last post on Facebook appeared at around 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 12.
'Leaks' of Szijjártó–Lavrov conversations
Earlier, on March 31, audio recordings of phone conversations between Szijjártó and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov were leaked online. The talks concerned the lifting of sanctions on influential Russians.
In particular, Lavrov asked the Hungarian minister to help remove Gulbahor Ismailova, the sister of oligarch Alisher Usmanov, from the sanctions list. Szijjártó promised to assist, and seven months later, Ismailova was indeed removed from the list.
Then, on April 8, just days before the elections in Hungary, Szijjártó was again caught up in a scandal due to a new leak of conversations with Lavrov. In those recordings, the two ministers discuss issues related to Ukraine’s accession to the EU, sanctions against Russia, and other sensitive topics for Europe.
Later, the European Commission stated that it was demanding explanations from Budapest following the new "leaks" of conversations between Péter Szijjártó and Sergey Lavrov.
