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Hungarian official says Putin to visit Budapest on Feb. 2

Xinhua, January 20, 2017 Adjust font size:

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Budapest on Feb. 2, 2017, Janos Lazar, the minister in charge of the prime minister's office said on Thursday.

Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto is scheduled to travel to Moscow next week to prepare for the visit, Lazar told a press conference.

Lazar noted that Putin was making a customary annual visit and the agenda would include current social policy and economic issues. While the meeting was important, it was not unusual, he added.

He predicted 2017 to be a "very important" year from the aspect of foreign policy, in part because of Brexit and a new president of the United States taking office.

Hungary, Lazar went on, believes that a new era in international affairs is evolving in which bilateral cooperation will dominate over multilateral partnerships.

Hungary envisages fair and equitable bilateral accords with the United States and Britain, he added.

Lazar also raised the issue of mass migration, saying that Hungary had to prepare for a situation in which Turkey would become unable to keep the refugees within its borders from traveling onward towards the European Union. Hungary will have to defend its borders irrespectively of Turkey, he added.

He also called it essential to construct a second fence, behind the existing one for addition protection.

Asked to comment on U.S. President-elect Donald Trump having called NATO obsolete, Lazar said while he firmly believed that Europe needed an independent defense capacity it would be premature to write off NATO. Endit