Polish, Hungarian presidents celebrate bilateral friendship day
Polish President Karol Nawrocki and his Hungarian counterpart, Tamas Sulyok, met on Monday in Przemysl, south-eastern Poland, to celebrate the Polish-Hungarian Friendship Day.
During a joint address to the media, Nawrocki said that the two countries enjoyed centuries-long ties, with shared kings, national heroes, and mutual acts of friendship in the 20th century.
"It is my mission and the mission of the [Hungarian] president to remove this friendship of two nations from the influence of short-term political tremors," Nawrocki said, adding that the bilateral ties will continue to last.
"There are some issues we are at odds about," he said. "For Poland, [Russian President] Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation are an existential threat... Poles love Hungarians and hate Vladimir Putin, who is a war criminal... but countries make their own diplomatic choices," Nawrocki added, referring to Hungary's current pro-Russia stance, in misalignment with most of the European Union.
Sulyok said that the Polish-Hungarian friendship was an integral part of the countries' national cultures and independent of their current policies.
"The Polish-Hungarian friendship is something extraordinary in Europe," he said, pointing to shared Christian values as the foundation of bilateral ties.
The Polish-Hungarian Friendship Day has been observed since 2007, alternately in Poland and Hungary.
Nawrocki was set to travel to Budapest later in the day to meet with Victor Orban, the country's openly pro-Russian and nationalist prime minister.
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