Aliyev and Orbán talk energy supply and relations in Budapest

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Budapest, ahead of Aliyev’s participation in the informal Summit of Heads of State of the Organisation of Turkic States in the Hungarian capital.

Aliyev visited Budapest on Tuesday.

In a meeting between him and Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister thanked Azerbaijan for its support during ‘difficult periods for the Hungarian economy’.

Aliyev and Orbán discussed how their countries support each other within international organisations, describing Azerbaijan and Hungary as ‘countries that pursue independent policies on the international stage based on their national interests’.

Aliyev has also praised Hungary for hosting the second informal summit of the Organisation of Turkic States, noting that the first informal summit took place in Shusha (Shushi) in 2024.

In a press briefing after the meeting, Orbán went on to praise his country’s relations with Azerbaijan while criticising the EU for choosing to ‘expand the war, not to establish peace’ in Ukraine. He said that the EU’s economy was in a ‘very difficult situation’, which he attributed to sanctions which had ‘undermined the market economy and the foundations of European development’.

‘I would also like to note that we are living in conditions of an energy crisis. Unlike America, we pay three to four times more for gas in Europe, and it is difficult to build a competitive economy in these conditions’, Orbán said.

‘We are a landlocked country. Our achievement is that we have maintained energy relations with Russia. An exception has been made for us. However, Ukraine is imposing restrictions on us.’

He said that Aliyev assured Hungary that its ‘gas supply will be ensured this year, as it was last year’, and that Hungary’s power company, the MVM group, and other companies, ‘can increase their shares in oil and gas fields and pipelines in Azerbaijan’.

While Azerbaijan does export gas to the EU as an alternative to Russian energy, many have expressed concern that Russia was ‘laundering’ its own gas through Azerbaijan. The EU Commission in November 2024 told Politico that the EU’s share of Azerbaijani gas was not sourced from Russia.

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‘This may not be a very large volume for Azerbaijan, but for us it is a very important issue that we are shareholders in the oil fields of Azerbaijan’, Orbán said.

He then congratulated Aliyev on reaching an agreement on the text of a peace treaty with Armenia, expressing hope that Baku and Yerevan would sign a peace agreement swiftly.

In turn, Aliyev delivered a longer statement, briefly touching on ties with Hungary, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict, which he said ‘lasted only 44 days’ — referring to the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War — unlike Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has been ongoing ‘for more than three years’.

‘Every day we advanced, we did not take a step back, there was not a single deserter in our army, while, by their own admission, the Armenian army had 12,000 deserters’, he claimed.

Aliyev claimed that Azerbaijan authored the text of the peace agreement which Armenia accepted, ‘of course with certain amendments’. He then went on to reiterate that Armenia’s constitution needed to be changed, claiming that it contained territorial claims against Azerbaijan. He also said that the OSCE Minsk Group needed to ‘be abolished’.

‘Unfortunately, the Armenian side does not want to accept these two conditions yet. However, the events of recent years and the course of the processes show that sooner or later they will have to agree to our proposal. Because there is nothing extraordinary in those proposals.’

Aliyev said that Hungarian companies have stakes in two major petrol and gas projects in Azerbaijan, the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli and Shah Deniz fields.

‘The next contract will be signed early next year. We also exchanged views on this today’, he said, adding that Azerbaijan’s gas resource base was ‘quite extensive and expanding’.

‘Today, we export natural gas to 12 countries, and ten of them are European countries, eight are members of the European Union’, he said. ‘The European Commission recognises Azerbaijan as a Pan-European gas supplier and a reliable partner.’

Aliyev concluded by congratulating Hungary for its pursuit of an ‘independent policy’, which he said was ‘quite difficult […] especially within the framework of the European Union’.

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