On Wednesday, Viktor Orban announced the ongoing preparations for the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. “The Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto is in Washington. We are continuing preparations for the summit. The date has not yet been agreed upon. When the time comes, we will organize it,” Orban wrote on his Facebook account.
Peter Szijjarto, the head of Hungary's foreign ministry, added that discussing the cancellation of the meeting is inappropriate since a specific date has not yet been established.
“I hope that this meeting will take place. Since there is no official date yet, I see no point in talking about a postponement,” Szijjarto noted in an interview with CNN.
The minister assured that work on the summit is ongoing, and Budapest is doing everything possible for its successful conduct.
Today, Szijjarto is scheduled to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to discuss the details of the upcoming meeting, expressing hope for clarification of the situation after this conversation.
Recall that on October 16, Trump and Putin had a phone conversation that lasted about two hours. During the discussion, they agreed to hold a second in-person meeting this year in Budapest. Following the phone call, the foreign ministers of Russia and the U.S., Sergey Lavrov and Marco Rubio respectively, discussed preparations for the summit. However, American media, citing a source in the White House, reported that preparations for the summit have been temporarily suspended. Trump later stated that a final decision on the meeting has not yet been made.
