The newspaper obtained access to a transcript of a telephone conversation between Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó and his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araqchi. During the conversation, Szijjártó assured the Iranian side that the Hungarian intelligence services had already contacted their colleagues from Tehran and were ready to hand over “every available document” and all the information collected as part of the investigation into the pager explosions.
The fact is that the Taiwanese company – the owner of the pager brand – stated that the exploded devices were produced by a Hungarian company under license. Officially, Budapest denied any connection with the production of the exploded devices, saying that the Hungarian intermediary firm did not have facilities in the country. However, this call and Szijjártó’s willingness to curry favor with Tehran at a time when the Trump administration was in a violent conflict with Iran calls into question the real political guidelines of the Orbán government, the newspaper writes.
The newspaper recalls that in March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed support for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the upcoming elections.
Context
September 17, 2024 in Lebanon portable communications equipment (pagers) used by members of the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah exploded the next day The militants' radios began to explode en masse.
According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, cited by the publication Elnashra, the pager explosions on September 17 killed 12 people and injured 2,323 people, and the radio explosions on September 18 killed 25 people and injured 608. Hezbollah admitted the death of 25 of its members over these two days, noted Elnashra. On September 19, the UN called the operation “horrific” violation of international law.
US intelligence media sources claimed that Israel was preparing this attack at least 15 years. Reuters, citing its own sources, reported that explosives were planted in communications equipment Israeli intelligence service Mossad. According to The New York Times, Israel created a front company in Hungary through which it delivered pagers containing explosives to Hezbollah.
