The U.S. is increasing pressure on Hungary to cut off its reliance on Russian oil imports and vows to work with Hungarian authorities and neighboring countries to help Budapest wean off Russian supply, a senior U.S. diplomat says.
Matthew Whitaker, the U.S. Ambassador to NATO, rejected in a Fox News interview suggestions from Hungarian politicians that the U.S. is giving Hungary a pass to continue importing Russian oil.
“Hungary, unlike many of their neighbors, has not made any plans or made any active steps,” Whitaker told Fox News in an interview.
“So we’re going to continue to work with them and we’re going to work with their neighbors like Croatia, and other countries that can help them wean themselves off,” the Ambassador added.
The U.S. official made clear that the United States expects Hungary to cut off Russian oil imports in the future and come up with a plan to do so.
“There’s a lot of planning that our friends in Hungary should do and we’re going to help them obviously, as a good ally, to make those plans and execute them to get them off of Russian oil and gas,” Whitaker told Fox News.
Hungary, whose top officials have remained in contact with Russia’s leadership including Putin, has continuously clashed with its fellow EU member states over plans to ditch Russian gas by 2027 and cut off oil supply from Moscow as soon as possible.
However, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban suffered diplomatic setbacks last week after the U.S. called off a Trump-Putin meeting in Hungary’s capital city Budapest and sanctioned the two biggest Russian oil firms, Rosneft and Lukoil.
Orban suggested that “The battle is not over yet” over Hungary’s choice of oil supply.
But the U.S. appears unfazed by the Hungarian pledges to find a way to work around the American sanctions and Whitaker told Fox News in no unclear terms that the United States expects Hungary to prepare a plan to wean itself off of Russia’s energy supply.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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