In the video published on Patrióta’s YouTube channel, the Prime Minister added that as Turkey was not a member of the European Union, they had been compelled to establish a procedure for communication. Once a year, a strategic council meeting is held at the highest level which is the equivalent of a joint cabinet meeting.
Mr Orbán highlighted that Turkey with its population of almost a hundred million was a regional great power, and at the meeting, he would have an opportunity to review the European and Eurasian situation with President Erdogan for several hours “as friends.”
“Upon introducing these regular meetings, we set out to double trade between our countries, the volume of which was between 2 and 2.5 billion euros; now we’re somewhere around 4.5 to 5 billion euros. Turks have appeared in the Hungarian economy, and the Hungarian presence, too, has increased in the Turkish economy,” the Prime Minister explained.
Mr Orbán recalled that Turkey played a prominent role in the fact that Hungary had managed to remain a migration-free country. This year, the Turks have detained 100,000 migrants, and there are 3 million migrants in the country whom they have not allowed to move on.
The Prime Minister also spoke about the fact that the war had increased the significance of the TurkStream pipeline significantly because this was the only pipeline via which cheaper Russian gas was coming to Hungary.
Mr Orbán said the Turks have been involved in all peace attempts so far, and together with the Hungarians they know that they can only lose on the war; as a result, the two countries often cooperate on the issue of the restoration of peace.
The Prime Minister recalled that in the past four years only they had succeeded in carrying off several important agreements, including the agreement on the transportation of Ukrainian grain to Africa.
