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Hungary represents the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported to the Index.
With our questions, we contacted the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh over the weekend. The state between Azerbaijan and Armenia is the powder keg of the Caucasus region as it is part of Azerbaijan but ruled by Armenians. The area is thus a collision zone between the historic battles of Baku and Yerevan, but on weekends the fighting between the parties resumed with unusual intensity. According to the latest official figures, 16 Azerbaijani citizens lost their lives in the fighting, while Yerevan recorded 104 military casualties and 23 civilians.
The Armenian majority of Nagorno-Karabakh is within the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan, and Hungary supports territorial integrity and state sovereignty as a general principle of international law.
– declared the Ministry of the Environment at our request. They added that the escalation of tensions in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh and the Support a negotiated solution in the framework of the Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
.
Advocating for Baku is particularly important because the conflict is expected to be a topic at the two-day EU summit that begins today. One of the items on the agenda of the meeting of EU heads of state and government is the increasingly angry relationship between the EU and Turkey, Ankara reportedly supporting Azerbaijan in the conflict with Armenian forces, not only politically but also militarily. This is confirmed by the news that a Turkish F-16 fighter jet shot down an Armenian SZU-25 fighter jet from Azerbaijani airspace in recent days.
The Hungarian government, on the other hand, has excellent relations with both Azerbaijan and Turkey, while EU leaders may be inclined to support Yerevan in the conflict. Although Brussels called on both sides for an immediate ceasefire, French President Emmanuel Macron and European Council President Charles Michel also condemned Turkey’s involvement in the conflict, and Michel also had a telephone conversation with the Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pasinján.
Due to relations between Azerbaijan and Baku, Hungary has had conflicts with the EU before. Last October, for example, it sparked a lot of controversy when the government vetoed a draft text that the EU wanted to use to warn the Turkish government that the Syrian operation could launch another wave of refugees.
And in May this year the European Court of Human Rights investigation into the case of Ramil Safarov, an Azerbaijani military officer who is a “white assassin”, was closed. Safarov was in Hungary as a participant in a NATO Peace Partnership program in 2004, and later killed his roommate, the Armenian Gurgen Margarjan, with an ax. Thus, the Hungarian court sentenced him to life imprisonment, but in 2012, at the request of the Azerbaijani authorities, Hungary extradited him to Azerbaijan. Safarov was celebrated as a national hero upon his return home, received presidential grace and was promoted, without spending a single minute in prison. Armenia protested and the victim’s relatives filed a lawsuit against Azerbaijan and Hungary in Strasbourg in 2013. The court also found that Hungary acted in accordance with international lawBaku, however, was condemned for Safarov’s release.
Since the murderer’s case, Hungarian and European public opinion has focused on Hungarian-Azerbaijani relations. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visited Baku in person last year, where he met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Following the meeting of the Turkish Council, which also includes Turkey, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the Hungarian Prime Minister justified the importance of eastern relations with excellent economic opportunities. Energy cooperation also stands out in this dimension:
Last year, for example, Mol acquired $ 1.57 billion, or about HUF 460 billion, in the largest and most strategically important oil field in Azerbaijan.
In February of this year, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Péter Szijjártó, reported that with the construction of the Southern Gas Corridor, which will soon be completed,
Starting in 2023, between 1 and 2 billion cubic meters of gas can reach Hungary from Azerbaijan each year.
The excellent relationship with Baku, of course, requires symbolic steps like defending the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The last time flames broke out in the disputed area was in July this year.
Then-Chancellor Péter Szijjártó spoke with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ceyhun Bayramov, and during the conversation renewed Hungary’s support for the Azerbaijani territorial unit.
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