Condoleezza Rice with Hungarian FM Kinga Goncz

Remarks with Hungarian Foreign Affairs Minister Kinga Goncz Before Their Meeting

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
October 12, 2006

SECRETARY RICE: Good afternoon. I would very much like to welcome Foreign Minister Goncz from Hungary. We have met before on a number of occasions including most recently in New York during the Transatlantic Dialogue and NATO. We have many issues that we will cover, including getting ready for the upcoming Riga Summit of our heads of state for NATO, but also bilateral issues in U.S.-Hungarian relations, which is just an excellent relationship. So thank you very much for being here.

FOREIGN MINISTER GONCZ: Thank you for the invitation. And I think first of all, thank you for your support. In terms of '56 and the anniversary of '56, because I know that you personally were so much involved and so much committed to have this anniversary is very nice and very -- extremely nice event in the U.S. It is very important for Hungarians. I think you know that it was an important moment of our history. And I was so glad to see that there are exhibitions, concerts, all kinds of books, some are published about this issue. And I know that you personally know quite a lot about this region and you were interested in this region and working in this.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, thank you. It was an inspiration, the Hungarians, to everyone. And I wrote one of my first papers as an academic on that revolution so --

FOREIGN MINISTER GONCZ: I know.

SECRETARY RICE: -- So thank you. It's so great to meet you.

FOREIGN MINISTER GONCZ: Thank you very much.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, after your talks with Councilor Tang this morning (inaudible) support of a resolution (inaudible)?

SECRETARY RICE: We had excellent talks with Councilor Tang. He also met with the President. I think the Chinese clearly understand the gravity of the situation. They clearly understand that the North Koreans in doing this have made the environment much less stable and much less secure. And they're working very hard in New York, but I believe we'll get a very good resolution that will demonstrate to the North Koreans that the international community is very much united in its condemnation of this test that was carried out a couple of days ago.

Thank you.

QUESTION: Do you expect (inaudible) tomorrow, Madame Secretary?

SECRETARY RICE: I don't know if it will be tomorrow, but I think it will be soon. Things are moving along at the UN. Thank you.

2006/925

Released on October 12, 2006

ENDS

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