BUDAPEST, June 2. /TASS/. Tayyip Erdogan's victory in the Turkish presidential election provides assurances that Russian gas will continue to flow normally through the TurkStream pipeline to Hungary. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said this on the air of the Kossuth radio station.

He recalled that his country now receives Russian gas only via the southern route through Turkey, "if they had a pro-American leader there, it is highly doubtful that this gas would reach Hungary and Serbia."

According to Orban, Erdogan's main rival in the presidential elections, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, is precisely such a pro-American leader.

If the opposition candidate had won the elections, problems could have emerged not only with gas supplies, but also with the opening of Turkish borders for millions of refugees from North Africa and the Middle East, who "would be on the Hungarian border this summer," the head of the Hungarian government believes.

Orban admitted that he took Erdogan's victory in the elections with "great relief." The Prime Minister noted that the President of Turkey has the opportunity to mediate in resolving the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, as he did before when concluding a grain deal.

Hungary receives most of its gas from Russia. In September 2021, the Hungarian company MVM signed two long-term contracts with Gazprom, which provided for the supply of a total of 4.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year through pipelines laid through Serbia and Austria, bypassing Ukraine. Since the use of the Nord Stream gas pipeline was suspended, an agreement was reached in October 2022 to increase Russian gas supplies via the southern route - through TurkStream and its branch through Bulgaria and Serbia. In 2022, Hungary received 4.8 billion cubic meters of gas via this route.