Budapest is starting the process of normalizing economic cooperation with Iran, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Facebook on November 17.
“There are many problems in the world, in recent days we have seen how easily conflicts can become unmanageable. The threat to global security can be reduced by ending as many conflicts as possible. If we manage to reintegrate Iran into the system of international cooperation, we could take a big step forward in the stability of the entire situation in the Middle East,” Szijjártó said.
In these, the head of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry and the Iranian Minister of Economy, Ehsan Khanduzi, held a meeting of the joint economic committee in Budapest.
Hungary remains almost the only supporter of Russia in the EU and constantly blocks decisions on anti-Russian sanctions.
Iran, in turn, was forced to admit that it was supplying Russia with drones, but said that they were delivered before the start of the war. Ukrainian military intelligence found out that this was not the case.
On November 8, Sky News, citing a source, reported that a Russian military aircraft had secretly delivered €140 million to Iran in exchange for drones. In addition, US and British weapons seized in Ukraine were handed over to Iran, including NLAW and Javelin anti-tank systems and Stinger MANPADS. Thus, the Russian side paid for the delivery of 160 Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles. This batch included 100 Shahed-136 kamikaze drones and 6 large Mohajer-6 UAVs.
In October, The Washington Post, citing US security officials and their allies, wrote that new deliveries of Iranian weapons to Russia would include ground-to-ground missiles. These will be the first missiles delivered by Iran to Russia. We are talking about Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar, short-range ballistic missiles. They are capable of hitting targets at 300 and 700 km, respectively.
On November 15, the US Treasury imposed sanctions against two individuals and three legal entities for the production and alleged delivery of drones from Iran to the Russian Federation. Earlier, the EU, the UK and Switzerland imposed sanctions on three Iranian citizens and the drone manufacturer Shahed Aviation Industries.
