“Hungary is establishing a 5 million euro fixed, long-term, low interest, preferential credit line to help Afghanistan”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó announced in a statement to representatives of the Hungarian press in the recess of the Brussels Conference on Afghanistan.

Mr. Szijjártó stressed that Hungary has already made significant contributions to help improve the situation in Afghanistan, but the Government had decided to make further pledges in the interests of handling the underlying causes.

“The aid credit line announced on Wednesday may be used to develop Afghanistan’s infrastructure and economic technology, as well as for institution development”, the Minister told the press.

“The Hungarian Government is making receiving credit subject to certain conditions. These include the fact that development programmes must be realised with the involvement of Hungarian enterprises and that Afghanistan must conform to the agreements it has signed with the European Union on keeping migration in check”, Mr. Szijjártó continued.

The Foreign Minister highlighted the fact that there are currently 101 Hungarian soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Hungary has recently extended its commitment to settling the situation in Afghanistan up to 2020 by providing 500 thousand euros in funding towards the training and operations of Afghan national, security and defence forces.

“All this is proof that with relation to migration Hungary’s isn’t just talking about resolving the situation, but is taking action and making a major effort to handle the underlying causes”, Mr. Szijjártó stressed.

The Minister told the press that Afghanistan is one of the sources of the migration crisis from where the second highest number of immigrants arrived in Europe last year. “When deciding on measures to improve the country’s situation it must also be taken into account that there are millions of internal refugees in the country and there are 3 million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan and 2.5 million in Iran.”, he explained, adding “And we must also not forget that the most minors with no adult accompaniment also set out from Afghanistan”.

Mr. Szijjártó also drew attention to the fact that this is also confirmed by the Hungarian figures; the second highest number of asylum seekers arriving in Hungary last year, 46,670, also came from Afghanistan, while 10,097 Afghans have applied for asylum so far this year.

The Foreign Minister noted that despite international aid and efforts of the Afghan government, the humanitarian situation in the war-torn country is continuing to deteriorate, and accordingly there is a realistic danger that a new wave of migration could set out from Afghanistan.

In the interests of preventing this, a decision was made to increase the level of international contributions in the interests of establishing peace and stability in Afghanistan.

Mr. Szijjártó told the press that the EU member states present at the conference had pledged a total of 4 billion euros, aimed at improving Afghan institutional and economic development and the financing situation.

There was a broad consensus among the participating politicians that Afghanistan should be much more efficient within the fields of preventing migration, repatriation and implementing readmission, in addition to which it must implement the reforms which, if introduced, would lead to fewer and fewer people wanting to leave the country”, the Minister added.

In addition to Foreign Ministers and diplomats from the EU’s Member States, the Brussels Conference on Afghanistan was also attended by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and President of the European Council Donald Tusk.

(MTI)