Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has strengthened ties with Turkey during President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s official visit to Hungary.
Talks on the agenda focused on migration, military cooperation, the TurkStream gas pipeline and other pressing topics.
PM Orbán highlighted that the TurkStream gas pipeline from Turkey to central Europe is currently being built and Hungary should be receiving gas from the pipeline by the end of 2021.
Referring to Hungary-Turkey cooperation, PM Orbán noted that in 2013 a deal was reached in Ankara with Erdoğan to establish a Supreme Strategic Council to meet each year.
The prime minister said military cooperation between Hungary and Turkey, both NATO members, was progressing well.
He added that Hungary and Turkey have jointly funded programs in Africa, including a medical mission to Kenya. He added that soon water and health aid to Ghana will get under way.
PM Orbán said bilateral trade is worth between EUR 3.1-3.2 billion a year, adding that the aim was to increase this amount to EUR 6 billion.
The prime minister noted that Hungary had made its largest capital investment outside the country recently when oil and gas company MOL acquired a stake in an Azeri gas field coupled with a pipeline to Turkey. The deal, he added, needs to be approved by Turkey’s competition authority. PM Orbán said Hungary wants to avoid having to halt hundreds of thousands of people at its southern borders. “We must back Turkish efforts to establish security zones in its neighborhood and repatriate migrants,” he said.
Read more about Hungary and Turkey’s responses to the migrant crisis in further Abouthungary.hu coverage from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Budapest.
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