Hungary: Talks off with Germany's top diplomat for scheduling reasons

The Hungarian Foreign Ministry said planned talks were cancelled between its foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, and Germany's top diplomat, Annalena Baerbock, due to an "unforseen change in his schedule."

The ministry asked Berlin to postpone the visit to a later, but still timely date, it told 444.hu, a Hungarian news site, on Saturday. "There are only technical reasons in the background, not political ones," the statement said.

German Foreign Minister Baerbock had originally been scheduled to travel to Budapest on Monday, in the first visit by a German politician to Hungary in some time, with lawmakers having kept their distance due to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's pro-Moscow and undemocratic policies.

She was due to visit shortly after Hungary took over the rotating EU Council Presidency on July 1.

Her visit would also have come after Foreign Minister Szijjártó joined Orbán on a surprise trip to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, which caused consternation in Europe and the US.

Szijjártó has a particularly close relationship with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, who honoured him with the Russian Order of Friendship in 2021.

Orbán said his meeting with Putin, who is pursuing a full-scale invasion and war on Ukraine, was a "peace mission."

He spoke with Putin in the Kremlin for two-and-a-half hours amid strong criticism of the visit from top EU officials and leaders.

During a joint appearance with Putin after the talks, Orbán again called for efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Ukraine war.

Several EU officials later stressed that the Hungarian leader had no official EU mandate for negotiations with Russia, and that it had nothing to do with Hungary assuming the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union.

Orbán, often a thorn in the side of Brussels over a range of issues, is seen as closest to Moscow among European Union leaders.

The cancellation of Baerbock's visit by Budapest came at short notice on Friday evening, Germany's Foreign Office said that same day, adding that it regretted the move.

It said that "a serious and honest personal discussion" between the two ministers would have been "very important" in light of Orbán's Moscow trip.