“The stability of our southern neighbourhood is extremely important to Hungary with relation to stemming the wave of immigration, and so we are striving to contribute to the region’s stability”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó told Hungarian news agency MTI on Saturday.

“The NATO summit primarily centred on southern challenges on Saturday, in view of the fact that the Alliance is facing major challenges not only from the east, but also from the south. Southern challenges have a direct effect on Hungary’s security since most migrants arrive from destabilised environments and destabilised regions in Europe’s southern neighbourhood”, Mr. Szijjártó said, adding that “The situation in the South is one of the main reasons for the migration pressure experienced by Europe and Hungary”.

“The stability of our southern neighbourhood is extremely important to Hungary with relation to stemming the wave of migration. This is why it has been decided that Hungary will maintain its military presence in Afghanistan after 2016”, he said. “There are currently 101 soldiers on duty in the country and this presence will be maintained”, he stated.

The Hungarian Foreign Minister also stressed that the financial support provided to help develop Afghan security forces will also be maintained until 2020, which equates to annual funding of 500 thousand dollars. “Hungary will also be cooperating to develop the capacities of the Jordanian and Iraqi armies; the Hungarian Defence Force will be training soldiers to find explosive devices”, he said. “The first Iraqi contingent will be arriving in Hungary for training in November, while Hungarian training officers will be travelling to Jordan early next year”, he added.

Mr. Szijjártó also said that he and his Jordanian counterpart had agreed that keeping refugees as close as possible to home and preventing them from coming to Europe should be set as a target and this is why Hungary has been urging the EU to provide assistance to Jordan, which is already caring for more than a million Syrian refugees, to enable the establishment of industrial development zones where refugees can find employment and thus remain as close to home as possible.

The Foreign Ministers of the Visegrád Group (V4) countries (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic) also held talks on the sidelines of the NATO summit and had agreed that the exit of Great Britain poses another serious challenge to Europe, which necessitates even greater cooperation between the countries of Central Europe, including the V4, Mr. Szijjártó told the press.

“The parties agreed to make V4 cooperation even more effective, especially in view of the fact that they have extremely important vested interests with regard to exit negotiations with the United Kingdom, which must be enforced”, he said. “These interests include the fact that economic cooperation with the United Kingdom should remain as close as possible, in addition to which protecting the interests of Central Europeans working in the UK is also important”, he added.

(MTI)