Hungary to open consulate in Armenia, foreign minister says on first visit

By Mark Dovich

Hungary plans to open a consulate in Armenia in a sign of mending ties between the two long-estranged countries.

“I have requested permission to open a consulate in Yerevan,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said Friday on an official visit to Armenia. No other details, including a timeline, were made immediately available.

Armenia broke off relations with Hungary in 2012, when Budapest extradited Azerbaijani army officer Ramil Safarov back to Baku after convicting him of murdering Armenian army lieutenant Gurgen Margaryan at a NATO training course. Safarov was given a hero’s welcome upon his return.

Ties between Armenia and Hungary remained frosty until last December, when the two countries issued an unexpected joint statement announcing a decision to restore full diplomatic relations and appoint non-resident ambassadors.

Friday’s visit marked the first high-level visit to Armenia from Hungary since then.

What’s the context?

Armenia’s moves to pursue better relations with Hungary, a European Union member, comes as the EU seeks a more active role in the region.

Since the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, Brussels, with U.S. support, has coordinated one track of Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks, while Russia oversees a separate track. So far, neither has made any discernible progress toward a normalization agreement.

The EU was due to host Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev earlier this month in Spain for talks mediated by the leaders of the European Council, France, and Germany, but Aliyev pulled out of the summit at the last minute.

European Council President Charles Michel then said he expected to meet with Pashinyan and Aliyev for three-way talks in Brussels sometime later this month, but a senior EU diplomat indicated earlier this week that meeting had been postponed.

In a separate development earlier this year, the EU dispatched some 100 unarmed civilian observers to the Armenian side of the border with Azerbaijan at Yerevan’s request. The EU has run a similar mission in Georgia since the end of that country’s war with Russia in 2008.