Newly appointed Foreign Minister Péter Balázs yesterday requested an audience with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a letter sent to US deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs Dan Fried, who agreed to set up the meeting.
The letter told Fried, who was recently appointed the “Guantanamo closure czar”, that the new Hungarian cabinet is committed to a strategic alliance with the US and ready for further co-operation in bilateral and international relations including those in Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba and to support democracy.
He said at present “very focused diplomatic actions” are needed as regards the US, the EU, Russia, China and “as a matter of course, our neighbours”. Balázs has also spoken to the Slovenian foreign minister and sent a message to Bratislava, as he intends to hold talks with his Slovak counterpart at a EU foreign ministers meeting next Monday.
Balázs plans to meet ethnic Hungarian organisations abroad and has written a letter to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, Kossuth Rádió reported.
