“The Dutch Foreign Minister has suggested this is “not the way” illegal immigrants should be received at the border, and accordingly the question arises: what would the Dutch police have done if aggressive immigrants threw stones and pieces of concrete at them at the border?”, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on Thursday.

In a statement issued to Hungarian news agency MTI by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Mr. Szijjártó reacted to statements by Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Bert Koenders during an interview published on Thursday afternoon on the Dutch public television (NOS) website, in which he declared with relation to Hungary’s border security fence and having seen the “horrible images” of violence that “this is not the method to jointly solve this problem in Europe”. In reply to a question from the reporter concerning the fence and the use of tear gas, Mr. Koenders said: “Everyone can see that it isn’t helping and it is not in this spirit that we should receive people”.

“I would draw my Dutch colleague’s attention to the old saying: As you sow, so shall you reap”, Mr. Szijjártó said.

The Minister also reacted to a statement published on the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs website on Thursday afternoon in which Foreign Ministry spokesperson Konstantinos Koutras commented with relation to Hungarian criticism of Greece. In reply to a question, the Spokesperson said: “We find it difficult to witness either the wave of statements from Hungarian officials against our country or, and mainly, what the UN secretary-general characterises as the ‘unacceptable’ conduct of Hungary’s forces of order against the refugees”.

With reference to the statements, Mr. Szijjártó said: “The fact that one of the mains reasons for the migration pressure that has hit the continent is that Greece is incapable of protecting its external borders is not a subject of debate in Europe”.

“This is exactly why Hungary is urging the establishment of a joint European force that is capable of protecting Greece’s external borders”, the Minister stated.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade/MTI)