U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will begin a two-day visit to Slovakia and Hungary on Sunday (15 February), aimed at strengthening ties with the two Central European nations, whose leaders have maintained close relations with President Donald Trump.
Rubio will use the trip to discuss energy cooperation and bilateral issues, including NATO commitments, the State Department said in an announcement last week.
"These are countries that are very strong with us, very cooperative with the United States, work very closely with us, and it's a good opportunity to go see them and two countries I've never been in," Rubio told reporters before departing for Europe on Thursday.
Rubio, who also serves as Trump’s national security adviser, will meet in Bratislava on Sunday with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who visited Trump in Florida last month.
The U.S. diplomat's trip follows his participation in the Munich Security Conference over the last few days.
On Monday, Rubio is expected to meet Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is trailing in most opinion polls ahead of an election in April, when he could face removal from office.
"The President said he's very supportive of him, and so are we," Rubio said. "But obviously we were going to do that visit as a bilateral visit."
Both Fico and Orbán have clashed with European Union institutions over probes into alleged democratic backsliding.
They have also maintained ties with Moscow, at times criticising or delaying the imposition of European Union sanctions on Russia, and have opposed sending military aid to Ukraine.
Even as other European Union countries have secured alternative energy supplies after Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022, including by buying U.S. natural gas, Slovakia and Hungary have also continued to buy Russian gas and oil, a practice the United States has criticised.
Rubio said the issue would be discussed during his brief tour but did not provide further details.
Fico has, however, refused to increase expenditure beyond that level for now, despite Trump repeatedly urging all NATO members to raise military spending to 5%.
Hungary has also set its defence spending at 2% of GDP in this year’s budget.
On nuclear cooperation, Slovakia signed an agreement with the United States last month and Fico has said U.S.-based Westinghouse was likely to build a new nuclear power plant.
He also said, after meeting the head of France’s nuclear engineering company Framatome this week, that he would welcome more companies taking part in the project.
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Türkiye and Iran’s foreign ministers spoke by phone after reports that a ballistic missile entered Turkish airspace, with Tehran denying responsibility and insisting its recent strikes targeted only U.S. and Israeli facilities.
U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. military has enough stockpiled weapons to fight wars "forever"; in a social media post late on Monday. The remarks came hours before conflict in Iran and the Middle East entered its fourth day.
The U.S. will take action to mitigate rising energy prices due to a spike in the price of oil caused by the Iran conflict, Secretary of State Rubio said on Monday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, arrived in Geneva and may hold talks with U.S. officials, according to the RIA news agency.
Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is a hardline cleric with strong backing from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. His rise signals continuity in Tehran's anti-Western policies.
Trump says the United States "don’t need people that join wars after we’ve already won," targeting his criticism at UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Israel continues to fire missles at strategic sites in Iran and Gulf regions report more strikes from Iran.
Global oil prices surpassed $119 a barrel on Monday (9 March, 2026), an almost four year high, as the Middle East conflict rumbled on.
Iran named Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father Ali Khamenei as supreme leader on Monday (9 March), signaling that hardliners remain firmly in charge, as the week-old U.S.-Israeli war with Iran pushed oil above $100 a barrel.
Entry and exit across the state border between Azerbaijan and Iran for all types of cargo vehicles, including those in transit, will resume on 9 March, according to a statement by the Cabinet of Ministers of Azerbaijan.
U.S. President Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke by phone on Sunday as tensions between Washington and Westminster deepened over the conflict involving Iran. The call came less than a day after Trump criticised Britain’s response to U.S. strikes on Iranian targets.
Norwegian police are searching for a suspect after an explosion at the U.S. embassy in Oslo on 8 March caused minor damage but no injuries, in what authorities say may have been a deliberate attack linked to the Middle East crisis.
An explosion damaged a synagogue in the Belgian city of Liège early on Monday (9 March) in what authorities said was an antisemitic attack that caused damage but no injuries.
The Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers will meet on Monday to discuss a global rise in oil prices and a joint release of oil from emergency reserves coordinated by the International Energy Agency, the Financial Times reports.
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