Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Embassy Row

FOREIGN POLICY VIEWS

With all the debate over foreign policy in the presidential election, the foreign minister of Hungary on Tuesday found little difference between Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama after meeting with advisers to the Republican and Democratic candidates.

"There was a slight difference," Kinga Goncz told reporters on a Washington visit.

Mr. Obama's advisers were "much more for dialogue" on various issues than Mr. McCain's foreign policy aides, she added.

Mrs. Goncz expressed relief over the similarities in the views of the two presidential candidates because Europe wants assurances that U.S. foreign policy will be consistent regardless of who wins the White House in November.

"We definitely wanted to meet the foreign policy advisers to both candidates to learn how they view U.S.-European Union relations. We need continuity," she explained.

"We'd like to see closer cooperation because we have a shared values system. We have to work together in solving crises."

Mrs. Goncz, foreign minister since 2006, cited the U.S. and European reaction to the Russian invasion of Georgia as an example of the influence of the trans-Atlantic alliance on international affairs.

"I think Russia was operating on the belief that we were still in the previous century, that military strength is enough to defeat a country," she said. "It seems Russia won the battle but lost the war [for public diplomacy]. The damage was quite serious."

Mrs. Goncz referred to the strong U.S. condemnation of Russia's action and the "unusually unified" EU criticism of Moscow. She also noted that many of the former Soviet republics in Central Asia also refused to be bullied by the Kremlin into supporting its military offensive.

On her Washington visit, Mrs. Goncz met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to present her with the Commander's Cross with the Star of the Order of Merit, one of Hungary's top civilian awards.

"She has had an important role in building relations between Central Europe and the United States and the United States and Hungary," Mrs. Goncz said.

Mrs. Goncz also presented a letter of support from Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany to the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and visited the Newseum, where she was impressed to see a section of the Berlin Wall on display.

"That was a great experience," she said, recalling Hungary's role in helping to open East Berlin.

Hungary in 1989 opened its border with Austria, allowing more than 13,000 East German tourists to flee to the west. Mrs. Goncz's father, Arpad Goncz, is also a hero of the struggle against communism. He was an activist in the Hungarian revolution of 1956 and was arrested a year later. Sentenced to life in prison, he was released in an amnesty in 1963. Mr. Goncz served as president of Hungary from 1990 to 2000.