Hungary's Orban, in Kyiv, proposes ceasefire to speed up peace talks
World
Hungary's Orban, in Kyiv, proposes ceasefire to speed up peace talks
KYIV (Reuters) - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday to consider a ceasefire to accelerate an end to the war with Russia, but Kyiv said it saw its own approach as the path to peace.
Orban, who is an outspoken critic of Western military aid to Ukraine and has the warmest relations of any EU leader with Russian President Vladimir Putin, held talks with Zelenskiy during his first trip to Kyiv in more than a decade.
In joint statements to reporters after the talks, Orban said he asked Zelenskiy to think about a ceasefire before the follow-up international summit Kyiv hopes to hold later this year.
"A ceasefire connected to a deadline would give a chance to speed up peace talks. I explored this possibility with the president and I am grateful for his honest answers and negotiation," he said.
Zelenskiy, who spoke before Orban, did not respond to those comments.
But his foreign policy adviser, Ihor Zhovkva, later said in televised remarks that it was not the first such proposal and that Zelenskiy had responded to Orban with his publicly known stance.
"We say that Ukraine really wants peace for itself, this is logical... For this, we have a tool - the peace summit," Zhovkva said, referring to Kyiv's push to build a global coalition to support its vision of peace.
After hosting dozens of world leaders at a summit in Switzerland last month to advance that blueprint, Kyiv has said it hopes to hold a second international summit later this year that could invite a Russian representative to attend.
Officials in Kyiv have often said Russia would use any let-up in fighting to regroup and strengthen itself for another, even larger attack on Ukraine.
In his statement to reporters, Zelenskiy touted the possibility of a broad bilateral cooperation agreement between Ukraine and Hungary.
"...the content of our dialogue today on all issues can become the basis for a bilateral document between our states, a document that will regulate all our mutual relations," he said.
Welcoming Zelenskiy's comments, Orban said Hungary would like to help in modernising Ukraine's economy.
