“International and European Union organisations must provide concrete replies to the question of whether a terrorist can be exonerated”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said at a press conference in Budapest on Wednesday.
“The European Parliament (EP) recently adopted a resolution in which it exonerated the man who threw stones at police at Röszke and directed the attack against police using a megaphone”, Mr. Szijjártó recalled.
The Minister ordered diplomats to call on international and EU institutions dealing with establishing and maintaining security in Europe, asking them to clearly state: it is unacceptable for a European institution to exonerate a terrorist for political purposes.
“Based on the first replies, these organisations are monitoring developments closely, but ‘this is not what we are expecting of them’, but concrete answers”, the Minister declared.
“The EP resolution includes several unfounded claims, including totally absurd ones, the most ridiculous of which is the exoneration of a terrorist. While Europe is having to face increasingly serious security challenges, a standpoint of this kind from the EP is unacceptable”, he said.
As he explained, it has become obvious from recent acts of terrorism that the terrorists’ goal is not just to kill people, but to eradicate a whole religion and culture, Christianity, and this is something we cannot allow”.
The perpetrators were immigrants, or people with immigrant backgrounds, and if the integration of these people who have been living here for decades has been unsuccessful, then how can the integration of the 1 to 1.5 million people who have arrived in throngs in recent years be successful?”, the Foreign Minister asked.
According to Mr. Szijjártó, political correct statements according to which we will not allow the terrorists to win or to change our way of life are outdated standpoints, because the threat of terrorism and the fear are already with us on a daily basis”, he pointed out.
The Hungarian Foreign Minister told reporters he had ordered diplomats to initiate proceedings at the relative UN, Council of Europe, OSCE and NATO bodies with relation to the EP resolution.
Mr. Szijjártó said the Government had received replies stating that these organisations are monitoring developments, but this is insufficient; “this is not what we are expecting” from organisations responsible for international security, but that they instead provide concrete answers to the question: it is acceptable to exonerate a terrorist or not, he explained.
These organisations fundamentally operate using the payments received from member states, and so their duty should be to provide real solutions to real problems, and accordingly he has once again asked diplomats to demand concrete answers from these organisations, the Minister said.
The Foreign Minister also said he had ordered diplomats serving in the EU to also make Hungary’s standpoint known to the EU’s institutions that deal with terrorism and are coordinating the fight against terrorism, and accordingly they will be contacting the European Council’s working groups on the domestic, international and justice-related dimensions of counter-terrorism activities, the EU’s counter-terrorism coordinator, the head of the relative division of the European External Action Service, and the EU’ court and justice organisation Eurojust.
We expect these institutions “not to come up with a reason why it is not their business to provide a reply on the issue”, but to also take a stand against terrorism, Mr. Szijjártó highlighted.
“We have already seen that the European Union is very good at taking a stand against Hungary”, but they must also take a stand against real problems, such as terrorism, “with the same vehemence”, he said.
(MTI)
