i'm sharanjit leyl in hanoi where the scene is set the leaders of north korea for the second round of historic talks between the leaders of the us and north korea. and the united states. donald trump and kim jong—un have both arrived here in the vietnamese capital. they'll meet for dinner this evening — ahead of the full summit on thursday. president trump and kim jong—un meet for dinner on wednesday evening — but the main business of the summit will take place on thursday. but the big question remains — mr trump is expected to point to vietnam's economic success as a model which north will ‘trump—meets—kim take ii' korea could follow. produce any more tangible results reports from the us suggest than the leaders‘ first president trump's former fixer — michael cohen — may use a hearing on capitol hill to publicly meeting in singapore? accuse him of ‘criminal conduct‘ while in office. and this story is i'm kasia madera in london. also in the programme: trending on bbc.com. donald trump's disgraced former fixer rescue workers in germany were called out to deal with a sewer michael cohen is testifying in washington. rat, which got itself stuck halfway out of a manhole. apparently the rodent had put on weight over the winter. it was successfully released. that's all. stay with bbc news. now on bbc news stephen sackur

is in budpest with hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk from budapest. i'm stephen sackur. hungary is a relatively small country in the heart of europe. it is led by a nationalist, populist prime minister, viktor orban, who believes his opposition to immigration, his defence of so—called christian values can transform notjust hungary but the whole of the european union. my guests in is hungary's foreign minister, peter szijjarto. but can ‘0rbanism' win europe's battle of ideas?

peter szijjarto, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much for the invitation again. what is fascinating about being in budapest right now is that, in the past couple of days, hundreds of huge posters have gone up around this city, depicting george soros, the american financier, next to jean—claude juncker, the president of the eu commission. and the message is that the european union — presumably in association with soros — is threatening the security of hungary. why does your country feel the need to indulge in this black propaganda? well, first of all, this is an election campaign so you should not be surprised of posters appearing in public areas... but this has nothing to do with elections because it's funded by the hungarian government, it doesn't have any party label on it, it is simply a message to from the government to your people.

we think that it is absolutely the obligation of a state, of a government to inform their citizens about developments which have an impact on their country, especially if there is an impact on their security, on their everyday life. you know, the government has this obligation and we inform the people about these issues and to answer the substance of your question as well, you know, george soros definitely has a totally different vision about the future of europe and about the future of hungary compared to what we have. that had been announced by him many times. it is absolutely open, it's public and we have a strong, let's say, heavy debate with him on this issue...

let's deal with...if i may... one second, just one sentence, if he is allowed to go open with his criticism, with his different vision, with his intention to throw out this government, my question is, why we hungarians, why we the government should not have the right to enter into this debate and go public as well. ok, let's deal with this piece by piece. first, you tell me that your government you tell me has a duty to inform. i would not imagine that you feel your government has a duty or indeed a right to lie, but the information provided, both in this poster and the facebook and social media posts which your government has put up about the poster, they are full of lies. can you give me the concrete issue because fighting the perception is not myjob. for example, your facebook

and social media psost say the eu is intent upon weakening border protection. yes, this is the case. it is categorically not the case according to a host of eu officials. but they are lying. they are lying. they are lying because, look, remember back in 2015 and the time since 2015, what was the major debate? whether hungary made it right or not to seal off the green border, whether hungary made it right or not to build up a fence and make it impossible for illegal migrants to go across the border. can you give me an example, just one example on a positive comments coming from european politicians or european media? no, everybody was attacking it and the european commission was taking the lead in that, to attacking hungary to protect its border. then, my question is, who is lying? they are because they wanted

to weaken our capacity to protect our border, they still want to weaken our capacity because they want frontex to protect the borders. do you know what frontex is? frontex is a travel agency. it is not a border protection agency. they would basically like to take away part of the rights of the sovereign nation states to protect their own borders. but our position is that protection of the border is a national obligation. here's another one, you claim that the eu is eager to ease access to migrant visas. again categorically untrue according to all of the detailed presentations from eu officials. they are lying. they say, and i'm quoting the vice president... they are lying. "you are living in a parallel universe." they, they are living in the parallel universe. they should listen to people, you know. they should listen to people and they should stop lying. because the whole migration policy, of the european commission, in the last years, was just about how to invite migrants to this continent. one other aspect of this campaign... in hungary people have decided many times. one other aspect of your campaign that i need to address and that is this association

of george soros with jean—claude juncker, the clear implication of your message being that somehow soros is pulling the levers of the european union as a direct association and, in the words of your own prime minister, "soros is in control of a conspiracy to lure migrants into europe". this is not a secret. there is not one shred of evidence to support that contention. i mean, let's look at the issue on a factual bases, instead of emotions, because i think it is very important to keep all debates about the future of the eu on a factual basis because then we have a... so you tell me how jean—claude juncker. .. ..then we have a hope tp come to a conclusion. explain to me, factually, howjean—claudejuncker is a puppet of george soros? george soros has put out his plan and vision about the future of european union quite many times, openly — you can look at the internet... that's not what i'm asking you about. i am asking for specific evidence.

he put out his plan. look at what was included in his plan. how many migrants should be brought into the european union, how much it would be significant that there are borders and national identity, how much the border protection capacity should be pushed back and look at the policy of the european commission since 2015 — exactly — exactly carrying out those points, which have been included in the plan of george soros. my question is... that's not evidence and you know it. crosstalk. in your view that's evidence? absolutely. that's absurd. no, this is the evidence. it has been written by george soros and that has been complete by the european commission. my question is, my question is, why european commissioners have received george soros 21 times during the last years, without any kind of public announcement afterwards? there is no evidence. you have presented not a shred of evidence that george soros is controlling the eu immigration policy. please compare... just because soros says things and just because the eu does things is not a causal relationship. and what if they are the same? and they are the same,

they are the same. they are not the same. even if they were the same, that is not evidence. crosstalk. that's just not evidence. it is. you think it is not evidence, we think it is evidence. i respect your position and i expect you to respect mine as well. it has been exactly the same migration policy carried out by the european union which has been written in the soros plan. that's the fact. you asked to be judged on what happens in this country. you are being judged by what happens in this country. the european parliament hasjudged you and last september it voted to begin article 7 punitive actions inside the eu because of your systemic abuse of eu norms and values — that's a judgement. there were 69 points in this report — 69. out of which, 13 has already been agreed by the government and by the european commission back in 2011-2013 so we can consider them closed. then there were 19 points about which we have a constant

dialogue with the european commission, which is a normal way of resolving different approaches about issues in the eu. and there were 37 points which were simple, systematic qualified lies about my country. one by one. i was there twice in the libe commission, i have answered all these questions. we have handed out more than 100—pager leaflet, point by point, going through why those are lies and why those are not true about my country. we can go through some of them if you like... please. ..which are clearly not lies, for example, the central european university has been denied the ability to hand out us degrees. it is therefore forced to move to vienna, michael ignatieff rector of the university... that is a big lie. it is fake news.

they are here. i have been, i have spoken to the rector, michael ignatieff... are they here? he says... crosstalk. they are here! it's a lie that they moved, they are here. it is not a lie that the headquarters has moved to vienna and the mike ignatieff is going to have to move to vienna. as he describes it, "it is as a tragedy for academic freedom, a tragedy for hungary and for europe." "it approves," he says, "that this government is ready to manipulate the law and democracy for its own purposes". he lies. what is the situation? there is a law in hungary on higher education, which applies to all higher education institutions exactly the same way — exactly the same way. what does it say? it says that, if you are a foreign—based university, you are allowed to issue a diploma of another country if you have a school in that given country, so suggesting that they had to move from hungary is a lie because they are here, they are issuing hungarian diploma, they have all the accreditations which are necessary to operate in hungary, and they can continue.

the only thing they cannot do is they cannot issue us diploma because they do not have a school in the us. is it also a lie that un experts have been denied access to your transit zones on the border with serbia, again, flouting international norms and standards? is that a lie? the un officials were here, they went to the border. they had the chance to look around so i do not understand... where they denied access inside your transit zone, yes or no? i was not there. i don't know, what kind of... i'll help you, the answer is yes. the un said quite simply, "we were denied access". we are a sovereign country, right? we are a sovereign country, there are laws and rights here whom to allow to have access to where and if you contradicting the law you cannot go there... nobody was contradicting the law. the only people contradicting the law, apparently, according to many independent sources are your governments

flouting norms and procedures when it comes to the rights of would—be refugees seeking refugee status in hungary itself. crosstalk. the helsinki committee quote, "the government consistently flouts international law when it comes to the treatment of migrants". it is not true. they are a bias organization financed by the soros matrix. it is not true. are they one of these organisations which the state media here has described as "mercenary soros organisations"? i went to see un officials after these comments were made, in geneva, all of them and i asked them what is your questions? why do you do that? why do you write lies? they refer to their own bureaucracy. one of them said that story ijust write, i did not know what was in the report, and all this kind of stuff. you know, if anybody is open to any kind of dialogue, it is me and it is the government. i go to new york, i go to geneva,

a little bit more often than i home as a duration of course. and i'm always open, i'm always ready to talk face—to—face about concrete issues but putting out such kind of allegations and perceptions is just simply not fair. the un has also looked at systemic corruption and what has happened to eu funds over many years in this country. those are all reasons why the european union, the democratically elected parliament of the eu, has decided that hungary must face article 7 sanctions. what i can tell you about the democratically elected european parliament is that they made a cheating during the voting. you know why? because in all parliaments in the world, including the european parliament, you have three options — vote yes, vote no, and vote abstention. and the only way that they could create two—form majority was that they took out abstention from counting. did you know that? isn't there a simple truth... crosstalk. any time from european bureaucrats, how is it possible that in a vote in session you take abstention out? totally contradicting the modus operandi in that parliament. what would you raise as a question if we had done the same in hungary? double standards you applie always. we have to understand, there is a phenomena

that we are usually under attack by a mainstream media and mainstream political elite in europe and it is very unusual that someone fights back but we are not ready to take these accusations and allegations and we always fight back because we have to defend our country. you always question decisions here in hungary, we are nation of freedom fighters. do you think it would be impossible to win seven elections in a row, like we did, in the last ten years, all national, all regional, all european parliament elections, if such kind of allegations were true? would you think that hungarian people would give their trust to this party seven continuous times in ten years if these allegations were true, that there would have been systemic corruption, dictatorship? de think hungarian people are not mature enough to make their own decisions? would you think that hungarian people would give their trust to this party seven continuous times in ten years if these allegations were true, that there would have been systemic corruption, dictatorship? de think hungarian people are not mature enough to make their own decisions? isn't there a simple truth here in hungary? you on the one hand say the brussels establishment,

and you always speak of it as if you aren't a part of it, but of course you are, you always suggest the brussels establishment is in the pay of george soros. you just said to me you think jean—claudejuncker is controlled by george soros. that's what i think, that's right. and yet you never talk about the what you must regard as a completely corrupted organisation and the reason you do not is because hungary relies on the billions of euros sent from the cohesion funds and other funds into this country every year. you both want to say you're not part of this union and at the very same time you are one of the chief beneficiaries of this union. i think it's an extremely important point which you raise now because this is another very unfair accusation, not the way you put here now but how it is usually portrayed. why? number one, we are part of the european union and we will be part of the european union

but in the european union now, we're part of the solution and not part of the problem and we contribute to the success of the european union. why? yes, we got european funds here but this is not the outcome of generosity of western european friends of ours. this is based on contracts and it's a 2—way street. one way is european funds coming here, the other way, we have opened to the market and you know how many profits western european companies have gained here? do you know the fact that 70 cents of every euros which come to this country in forms of european funds is going back to the western part of europe. did you know that? if you know it and other representatives of distinguished media knows it, and western politicians know it, why don't they say it? on the other hand, there are specific questions which come from the flow of cohesion funds. now, olaf, the internal auditing organisation of the european union, has looked for years at the way your government has spent

the funds, including street lighting, improving water services and last year it said because of systemic failings and corruption, it wanted 280—plus million euros returned to brussels because it had been misspent in this country. how much of it have you returned? in this case, i only can refer you to the prosecutor general‘s office because these kinds of issues should be investigated by them. and they have investigated these issues. how much have you returned? you are foreign minister, you must know. you are not quite aware of the governmental structure here because the eu funds do not belong to the foreign ministry. of course not, but you go to brussels all the time and it's important you must a positive relation ship with brussels. i do. how much has hungary returned? once again, ask it from my colleagues who are responsible. you sit here is an accountable foreign minister of your government and you won't tell me. yes.

is that reasonable given that's money paid for by taxpayers of the european union and it's been abused and misspent inside your country. come on, again, you brought accusations and allegations on my country which i must reject. they are not my allegations. i quoted them but they are not my allegations. it's not fair because in this country, the prosecutor general‘s office is the responsible authority to investigate such kind of issues and if they find no crime, then i have to reject these kind of allegations which you floated, with my respect. it is philosophically interesting, as you put it, to see that hungary is determined to reshape the european union from within which i guess explains the strong political relationship that your prime minister has developed with marine le pen, with matteo salvini, with the nationalist government in poland. what are you speaking about madame le pen, salvini? what time did they meet? your own prime minister is saying,

forging an alliance with all those who are opposed to immigration. he said in the last few weeks, as far as he concerned... if you have a tight relationship with someone, you must meet sometimes, right? but this is ideological. it is practical to meet with someone, not ideological. did you not actually hear your own leaders say, all the forces who are adamantly opposed to immigration in europe should fight together in this european election to create a new movement, a new bloc? what we think is it would be necessary and it would beneficiary on behalf, for the european union, that anti—migration forces would get the majority in the european parliament and the european commission as well.

that is our position and hope to have the best possible results reached here in hungary to contribute the same, this target to be completed. that anti—migration forces will have the majority in the european parliament, and the european commission.. is this your way of saying after the may elections, you in the fidesz party will no longer be a mainstream part of the mainstream conservative epp? we want to remain. all those anti—immigration forces, they are not part of the epp. jean—claude juncker has just said in the future, your party, fidesz, has no place in the epp. it's not him to decide. that is one opinion but it's not him to decide. if i can just refer back a long time ago to 2011, the debate about migration had been there in the european people's party but it was not that loud because at that time, we didn't have this influx. the debate was there. we debated about whether migration is the right answer for existed labour market and demographic challenges in the european union. our position was no, migration is not the right answer. find some other national answers. there were parties in the epp that says yes, they feel it is. so this debate has

always been there. one way the eu is going to change very soon is britain leaving, brexit. we regret that. do you want the eu to offer more and new concessions to britain to ensure that it does not leave with no deal? any change to the current position of the european union must be made by an unanimous decision of 27 countries. i assume it would be very complicated to open it and change it in a way that can be closed by the 27 as well but we are only one of them, of the 27, so let's see. there has been a description of viktor orban‘s hungary as in the vanguard of illiberal democracy and, at times, mr orban has embraced that notion of illiberal democracy, and we've discussed different aspects of it in this interview. are you proud to sit here and say that hungary believes in illiberal democracy and wants it

to spread throughout europe? we believe in democracy because we are a democratic country, we are a democratic people. prime minister orban is, i think, the only european politician who has run all the national parliament elections from 1990, he won four times, he lost four times, he was always stayed and was accountable and he's never escaped the supervisory body of russian energy companies, you know, he was always here. he was here for his citizens and he was accountable. from this perspective, i think he is the most democratic leader in the european union. what he said about illiberal democracy, it is unfair towards him and the country not to quote properly. what he said was, we are kind of fed up with the approach that if it not the liberal parties to win the election, then they immediately consider it as non—democracy.

if you wish, our democracy can be considered illiberal because it is not the liberal party rule, and it's not fair that the liberal parties always try to portray countries as non—democratic if they are not in power. that is under this expression that i hope to understand. i suppose my thought is you want to see your form, your style of politics spread wider in europe. actually, we are responsible for hungry. so don't put too much burden on our shoulders. we are for a strong european union but the thing that get to a strong european union, we need to have strong member states so we really do not absolutely agree with the approach that weaker the member states are, the stronger the european union would be. the stronger the member states are, the stronger the european union would be in the future, but that's a very heavy debate and i think this debate will be with us for a pretty long time.

peter szijjarto, we have to end there but thank you very much being on hardtalk. it was my pleasure, thank you. hello there. this unusually warm weather is not going to last forever and as we change the month we will change the weather quite significantly. over the past few days we've seen the temperatures creeping up day by day, culminating in 21.2 celcius at kew gardens yesterday. the weather is changing because the position of the jet stream is going to change. we have been on the one side of it for a long time now, but look what happens in the atlantic. a strengthening westerly jet is heading our way. that will bring cooler air and it will bring more changeable

weather as well. so today, make the most of the sunshine. today is probably the last of the warm and sunny days. it will be a lovely day but it's a bit of a chilly start. temperatures close to freezing in one or two places. a bit more mist and fog around as well in the morning, across southern england, parts of the midlands, the vale of york and around the moray firth. it will tend to lift and we should see the sunshine coming out far and wide. more cloud coming into northern ireland at times, through most parts of scotland and the irish sea. there is lots of sunshine around and more warmth as well, those higher temperatures around the london area, around 19 or 20 celsius. a lovely day to come for many of us. a persistent area of high pressure is retreating, getting sucked away down towards iberia and the azores, which is where it should be, really, at this time of year. it allows these weather fronts to come in from the atlantic. you will notice much more cloud around on thursday. it will be rather dull and misty and murky, and we could see some bursts of rain coming in to wales,

perhaps north—west inward, the midlands and southern england. a limited amount of sunshine in the south—west. most places cloudy. nine degrees in scotland, a few spots of rain in northern scotland. 12 or 13 further south at best, significantly lower than we have seen over the past few days. we may find original high pressure coming in and drying things off on friday, ahead of the next weather front arriving from the atlantic. this is where all the weather will be coming from. dull, misty, patchy fog again on friday morning. quite cloudy in eastern areas, further west, maybe some sunshine ahead of this rain, which holds off until late in the day. but those temperatures are still slightly above average for this time of year. but quite different from what we have grown used to. it is not really going to get an awful lot warmer over the weekend, either. bands of rain coming in from the atlantic followed by sunshine and showers and it could be quite windy as well, quite a deep area of low pressure coming across the north of the uk. windy weather in scotland, northern ireland and also across northern england.