“It is time for the eastern and western halves of Europe to give up political correctness and hypocrisy, and to begin working together to combat the threat of terrorism so that we can protect Europe”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó told Hungarian news agency MTI during an informal meeting of Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) foreign ministers in Austria.
“We are experiencing the highest ever threat of terrorism in Europe, which is a result of the many mistakes made by European politics”, he stressed. “The most serious of these is that thanks to its hypocritical and inappropriate immigration policy, 1.5 million people have arrived on the continent without any kind of checking or identification”, the Minister declared in the interview for MTI.
“15 major terrorist attacks have been perpetrated in Europe since the Paris attack in 2015, claiming 315 lives and injuring around a thousand people”, Mr. Szijjártó recalled. “It is time for the European institutions in Brussels to finally being dealing with real issues and begin fighting against real problems, and accordingly also to begin handling the threat of terrorism”, he emphasised.
In the interview, the Hungarian Foreign Minister highlighted the fact as the Islamic State terrorist organisation (ISIS) begins to lose ground it is beginning to employ new tactics, thanks to which the terrorist threat is becoming even more serious and we must face even more serious challenges. As examples, he mentioned the recruiting of lone perpetrators, the activation of sleeper cells and the deployment of chemical or biological weapons.
According to the Minister, 2500 out of the 11 thousand foreigners fighting for ISIS are EU citizens. “This means that as ISIS begins to lose ground it is unfortunately highly realistic that these people will return to Europe, which represents a totally new level of danger”, he said.
“Accordingly, we must do everything possible to defend Europe from the new and never before seen level of terrorist threat”, Mr. Szijjártó said, adding that in his opinion this requires “civilised cooperation” between the eastern and western halves of the continent.
“The OSCE was established to enable East and West to work together ‘in a civilised manner’ within the framework of this platform”, Mr. Szijjártó pointed out, stressing that: “There has never been a greater need for such cooperation”.
Some thirty ministers for OSCE member countries are meeting in Mauerbach near Vienna on Tuesday to discuss current conflicts in the area covered by the OSCE, migration, terrorism, human rights, the rule of law and democracy.
(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade/MTI)
