Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said Hungary will stay out of “NATO’s insane action” despite all pressure on the country, adding that “it will however be a long fight, in which the upcoming EP election, when people can express their opinion on war or peace, will be an important point”.
After talks in London with David Cameron, his British counterpart, Minister Szijjártó said that the proposal aimed at giving NATO an increased role in training Ukrainian soldiers and coordinating weapons shipments to Ukraine, as well as allocating 100 billion euros to support that country, had been put before member states of the organisation on Tuesday. During a discussion of the proposal, “it became clear that they do not really want to let us stay out of those common activities, but we will clearly stay out,” he said. “Hungarian soldiers will not participate in such actions; we will not allow such actions to take place on the territory of Hungary and we want to stay out of the financing of that, too. We want Hungarian taxpayers’ money not to be used for such a purpose, but it will be a long fight,” he said. “They want to push us into the war and want us Hungarians to participate in this crazy action,” the minister warned.
“The Hungarian government will continue to represent a pro-peace position and we will use all our strength to stay out of this crazy action despite all the pressure exerted (on us) within NATO.” By promoting the proposal NATO “has crossed its own red lines and is taking huge steps towards the war, while direct confrontation would carry the risk of the outbreak of a third world war,” he said. Szijjártó said the “pro-war” proposal was based on the notion that “the war in Ukraine is our war” which ran contrary to the Hungarian government’s position. “And those who think that it is our war, argue in favour of continuing the war until Ukraine’s victory; NATO’s proposal is also based on that goal and the British position also suggests the same,” the minister said. “Both the Brits and NATO tie the end of the war to a military outcome, which is absolutely unrealistic to achieve; its probability is low, practically almost impossible,” he said. There is no solution to the conflict on the battlefield because neither party can defeat the other, and a diplomatic solution is the only conceivable way,” Szijjártó said.
Hungary and the UK are allies and “absolutely see eye to eye on certain issues, while they do not agree at all in other questions,” Szijjártó said. Examples of the former case are their acting up against discrimination of nuclear energy and the need for improving Europe’s competitiveness, he added. “We also agreed that ties between the European Union and the United Kingdom could also be mutually beneficial despite Britain’s exit from the EU, but it would be good if Brussels at last stopped punishing the UK and we could start treating EU-UK ties with common sense,” Szijjártó said. “We are also in agreement that illegal migration must be stemmed because it is dangerous, for the migrants themselves, for transit countries, and for the destination countries, too,” Szijjártó said. “However, on what we disagree is the issue of the war in Ukraine; while Hungary urges a ceasefire and peace talks, the Brits keep encouraging everyone to send more and more weapons to Ukraine,” he said. “We can talk to each other on the basis of mutual respect, but over an important, currently the most import issue, namely how the war could be ended in Ukraine, we have conflicting positions,” he said.