Hungarian FM questions US on possible surveillance

Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi took advantage of the presence of United States Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland at an international gathering to question her on the Hungarian aspects of the U.S. electronic surveillance scandal, said the Foreign Ministry on Friday. Nuland, who attended a meeting of the Visegrad Group (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) and the 18-nation Central European Initiative in Hungary on Thursday, said U.S. President Barack Obama had said he was sorry the affair had blemished the trans-Atlantic alliance. In the wake of the scandal, begun when former U.S. National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden leaked information on the surveillance and WikiLeaks named Budapest as a deployment site of the eavesdropping equipment, Nuland said the U.S. president had ordered a full investigation of American surveillance procedures. "A dialogue on the issue between U.S. and Hungarian officials was begun to design and intensify bilateral cooperation in a manner that pays utmost attention to both security and privacy considerations," said a Hungarian foreign ministry press release. The Hungarian foreign ministry had issued a briefing on Wednesday, calling on the U.S. to clarify the situation.