Civil activists targeted by Hungary meet with Pompeo

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo began his re-engagement trip to central Europe by meeting with civil activists who have run afoul of the government and by taking a subtle swipe at the Obama administration.

Pompeo is the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Hungary in more than seven years, a point he and Hungarian officials raised repeatedly in public remarks. The Obama administration shunned Hungary in a reproach of the authoritarian leanings of populist right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

“When America’s absent, that won’t be in America’s best interest,” Pompeo said in a news conference with his Hungarian counterpart, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto. “So we’ve taken a fundamentally different approach in the Trump administration. We’ve now had 14 senior-level U.S. visits to central Europe in just the first two years of this administration. I won’t tell you how many there were in the previous administration, but it starts with a Z.”

Pompeo kicked off his time in Hungary, the first stop on a five-nation European trip, with a visit to a statue of President Ronald Reagan, erected in 2011.

“It’s very special, standing here and in front of this monument, near our embassy,” Pompeo said. “It’s a sign of the relationship we have and want to have and will have. We care deeply about this part of the world, too, and its freedom.”

Then Pompeo strolled into the U.S. Embassy, where he was photographed talking with three civil rights activists in a public display of support.

Their meeting was in a room at the embassy where Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, a Catholic leader who was vocal in the anti-communist movement after World War II, lived after seeking refuge for 15 years after Soviet troops entered Hungary in 1956 to quash an anti-communist rebellion.

Two of the activists have been targeted during a crackdown by Orban, and a third was active in exposing cronyism within the Hungarian government.

In a statement afterward, the activists said they had discussed the rule of law in Hungary, attempts to stifle freedom of the press and government smear campaigns against them.

Pompeo said he would express U.S. concerns over human rights and democratic ideals when he talked privately with Hungarians.