Due to new security challenges, even those parts of the world are facing threats which we once regarded as face, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said at the Nelson Mandela Peace Summit held in conjunction with the session of the UN General Assembly on Monday.

Among the three most important risk factors he mentioned the massive and uncontrolled process of migration which, he said, also provides an opportunity for terrorist organisations to send their activists to other parts of the world. We must therefore collectively fight against illegal immigration.

We must also reject the approach which appears to suggest that migration is a fundamental human right, Mr Szijjártó said repeating the Hungarian position.

He made specific reference to the threats which national minorities and religious minorities are facing, and stressed that it is the duty of international organisations, too, to protect them and to guarantee their rights.

Religious and national minorities should be regarded as sources of friendship, rather than as sources of tensions, the Hungarian Minister pointed out.

The UN General Assembly decided to organise the world summit named after former President of South Africa and anti-apartheid fighter Nelson Mandela last year. They timed the plenary meeting for the one hundredth anniversary of Mandela’s birth, the time of this year’s session of the General Assembly.

The meeting was opened by UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

According to the declaration prepared for the peace summit, the attendees are committed to redoubling efforts to build a just, peaceful, prosperous, inclusive and fair world, and similar to Mandela, to focus their efforts on human dignity.

In order to promote and facilitate peace efforts and the enforcement of human rights, the attendees declared the period from 2019 to 2028 as the Nelson Mandela Decade of Peace, and they welcomed measures adopted to enhance peacemaking activities.

On the occasion of the summit, a statue of Nelson Mandela was also inaugurated at the United Nations Headquarters.

Mr Szijjártó had a number of bilateral meetings on Monday. He met with American Cardinal Timothy C. Dolan with whom he primarily discussed the cause of persecuted Christians around the world. He had meetings with representatives of several leading pharmaceutical companies where he pointed out that in recent years some of the largest pharmaceutical companies had shown considerable interest in Hungary. In this context he highlighted that, in addition to the automotive industry, the pharmaceutical sector is one of the flagships of research and development in Hungary.

(MTI)