Putin affirms preservation, development of Russian-Hungarian relations at meeting with Orban

BEIJING. Oct 17 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum.

"Despite the limited opportunities for maintaining contacts and developing relations under the current geopolitical circumstances, we cannot but be pleased by the fact that relations with many countries of Europe are preserved and developed. Hungary is one of those countries," Putin said at the start of his meeting with Orban.

Over the past few decades, Russia-Hungary relations were built "exclusively on the basis of considering each other's interests and everything positive inherited by us from the past," Putin said.

"This applies to a substantial number of areas, first and foremost, the economy. We saw a significant growth in trade and economic cooperation last year. It topped 80%. Regretfully, we observed a decline over the first seven months of this year, down 35%. Thank God this does not nullify the over 80% [growth] of last year but there are reasons to think about what else can be done to positively influence this process," Putin said.

He noted the importance of "the opportunity to exchange views with an EU member state, in this case, Hungary, not just on bilateral relations but also on the situation in the world, in Europe."

"We know that our positions do not always coincide, but having the opportunity to exchange opinions, in my view, is always extremely important," Putin said.