“NATO will be increasing its role in the fight against the Islamic State terrorist organisation, primarily within the field of training”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó announced following a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels on Thursday.
The Minister informed Hungarian news agency MTI that Mr. Stoltenberg had “expressly assured Hungary of his appreciation”, and the country is already participating in the activities in the global coalition against ISIS with two hundred military personal, some of whom are performing training activities.
“I assured the Secretary General that Hungary will be contributing to NATO’s battle against terrorism not only in words, but also in deeds, and that – as has been the case so for – it will continue to do everything possible in the interests of defending the security of Hungary and of European citizens in future”, he said.
The Minister added that the Hungarian Government has a clear plan for increasing the country’s annual defence spending to two percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) by the determined deadline in accordance with its previous undertakings. As he explained, Hungary’s recently launched military modernisation programme will be playing a major role in this.
In closing, Mr. Szijjártó told the press that as a result of Hungary’s veto, a session of the NATO-Ukraine ministerial committee will once again not be taking place at the organisation’s summit of foreign ministers on Friday.
With relation to this, the Hungarian Foreign Minister emphasised: “Through the ‘brutal’ violation of the rights of Hungarian and other minorities living in Ukraine, the country is not only violating its bilateral commitments, but also its international commitments”.
“Until it eliminates this state of affairs, Hungary is unable to support Ukraine’s further euro-Atlantic integration aspirations”, he said. Mr. Szijjártó also expressed his hope that the situation will change, but underlined that this requires the repealing of the new laws that have stripped the Hungarian minority of their previously acquired rights.
(MTI)
