KYIV,
July 2 (Reuters) - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban urged
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday to consider a
ceasefire to accelerate an end to the war with Russia, but Kyiv said it
saw its own approach as the path to peace.
Orban,
who is an outspoken critic of Western military aid to Ukraine and has
the warmest relations of any EU leader with Russian President Vladimir
Putin, held talks with Zelenskiy during his first trip to Kyiv in more
than a decade.
In
joint statements to reporters after the talks, Orban said he asked
Zelenskiy to think about a ceasefire before the follow-up international
summit Kyiv hopes to hold later this year.
"A
ceasefire connected to a deadline would give a chance to speed up peace
talks. I explored this possibility with the president and I am grateful
for his honest answers and negotiation," he said.
Zelenskiy, who spoke before Orban, did not respond to those comments.
But
his foreign policy adviser, Ihor Zhovkva, later said in televised
remarks that it was not the first such proposal and that Zelenskiy had
responded to Orban with his publicly known stance.
"We
say that Ukraine really wants peace for itself, this is logical... For
this, we have a tool - the peace summit," Zhovkva said, referring to
Kyiv's push to build a global coalition to support its vision of peace.
After
hosting dozens of world leaders at a summit in Switzerland last month
to advance that blueprint, Kyiv has said it hopes to hold a second
international summit later this year that could invite a Russian
representative to attend.
Officials
in Kyiv have often said Russia would use any let-up in fighting to
regroup and strengthen itself for another, even larger attack on
Ukraine.
In
his statement to reporters, Zelenskiy touted the possibility of a broad
bilateral cooperation agreement between Ukraine and Hungary.
"...the
content of our dialogue today on all issues can become the basis for a
bilateral document between our states, a document that will regulate all
our mutual relations," he said.
Welcoming Zelenskiy's comments, Orban said Hungary would like to help in modernising Ukraine's economy.