Hungary will ensure Russian President Vladimir Putin can enter and leave the country for a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump planned in Budapest despite his outstanding International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Friday.
“We will ensure that he enters Hungary, has successful negotiations here, and then returns home,” Szijjarto said.
“There is no need for any kind of consultation with anyone, we are a sovereign country here. We will receive [Putin] with respect, host him, and provide the conditions for him to negotiate with the American president.”
Hungary is currently a member of the ICC, but is in the midst of a year-long process of withdrawing from the organization, after its parliament approved a bill to leave on May 20, which held that the court had become politicized.
Earlier this year, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also has an ICC warrant out for his arrest.
Neither the United States nor Russia recognizes the ICC’s jurisdiction.
Trump agreed to a second summit with Putin on the war in Ukraine to be hosted in Budapest, saying it could happen within the next two weeks.
He said in a Truth Social post on Thursday that he had concluded “a very productive” call with Putin.
“At the conclusion of the call, we agreed that there will be a meeting of our High Level Advisors, next week,” Trump said, noting that the initial meetings will be led by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials to be named.
A meeting venue has yet to be determined.
“President Putin and I will then meet in an agreed upon location, Budapest, Hungary, to see if we can bring this ‘inglorious’ War, between Russia and Ukraine, to an end,” Trump wrote.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Rubio would need to call each other and set up a meeting to sort out pre-summit issues.
“First, they will have a phone conversation and meet, and hold discussions on the topic, begin to discuss all issues,” he told Russian state news agency TASS.
“There are a lot of issues—it is necessary to determine negotiating teams. Everything will be in stages.”
It follows an earlier meeting about the war between the two leaders in Anchorage, Alaska, in August of this year, which was the first in-person encounter between a U.S. president and Putin since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Orban spoke with Trump on Thursday and with Putin on Friday, saying preparations for the summit “are going full steam ahead.”
The veteran Hungarian leader is a long-time Trump ally and also maintains close ties with Russia. His relationship with Putin, and opposition to ending Russian gas and oil imports, has driven a wedge between himself and other leaders, including, to a lesser extent, Trump.
Speaking on state radio on Friday, Orban said Hungary was the only country in Europe that could host such a meeting.
“If we look at the European political map, there is only one country that has consistently and always been pro-peace,” he said.
“Of course, everyone here in Hungary is excited now. Because God knows when the last time there was a diplomatic event of such significance in Hungary, where we are not simply the hosts, but maintaining the situation that Budapest can be suitable for hosting a peace summit is considered a political achievement.”
He added that while he understands that Hungarians are excited and curious, he asks “everyone to exercise restraint, because this negotiation is not about us, but about peace.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
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