The Hungarian government will support the participation of Hungarian companies in the restoration and construction work of the Karabakh. So announced the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó after talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov in Baku, where the two parties also discussed the preparations for an agreement under which Hungary is set to purchase natural gas from Azerbaijan from the mid-2020s.
According to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, huge investments would be made in the next 2-2.5 years.
“If Hungarian companies could take part in this, it would mean a huge potential for them,” Mr Szijjártó said.
Security of gas supply has always been a critical issue in Central Europe, including Hungary and at the end of last year, a new reality had been created with the completion of the Southern Gas Corridor, which supplies gas from the Caucasus region to Europe. Hungary would have a physical link to the Southern Gas Corridor by the end of this year, through an interconnector between the networks of Greece and Bulgaria as well as a pipeline between Hungary and Serbia
“It is in Hungary’s interest to be able to buy gas on this new route,” the Minister said.
Hungary’s power company MVM Group and SOCAR, the Azeri State oil company, have already started negotiations so that by the time they can proceed with the extraction, the legal framework for the gas purchase would already be in place.
Also, Minister Szijjártó congratulated Mr Bayramov for signing the Turkmen-Azerbaijani agreement, which will allow gas to arrive in Europe from Turkmenistan as well, a huge step also for Hungary.
