Further reactions to the US Embassy Twitter video

Two authors mentioned in the video reject it as an example of a patronizing US attitude. A left-wing commentator asserts that frictions with the United States are not in Hungary’s best interest.

Reacting to the video posted by the US embassy (See BudaPost, October 20), Tamás Menczer, State Secretary in charge of bilateral relations within the Foreign Ministry, said Hungary continues to promote relations based on mutual respect with the United States ‘even should that ambition not be reciprocal’. In an interview with ATV on Wednesday, he also said Budapest would be glad to host a Biden-Putin summit aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.

In an open letter to US Ambassador David Pressman, Demokrata editor András Bencsik repeats his allegation that the two Nord Stream gas pipelines were blown up by the United States, adding that this was not behaviour one would expect from an ally. In his concluding remark, he writes he would not welcome unequal alliances ‘either with the European Union or with the United States’.

In a similar but even harsher style, Magyar Nemzet’s Zsolt Bayer compares the United States to a lady whom one used to be in love with, but who has since become a shrew. He describes Ambassador Pressman as someone who has come to Budapest in order to lecture Hungarians as ‘a new Andropov visiting a colony to explain to the natives what’s right and what’s wrong’.

In Népszava, Gábor Horváth dismisses such reactions, arguing that the statements criticised by the US embassy are in fact ‘not OK’ among allies. He predicts that after the half-joking points made in the US Embassy video, more serious messages will follow. The left-wing commentator concludes that anti-Americanism only plays into Putin’s hands, while the interest of the Hungarian public would dictate the exact opposite.

Tags: Pressman, Ukraine, US Embassy