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Orbán: Turkey releasing migrants to Syria in Hungary’s interest
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It is in Hungary’s interest that Turkey releases migrants towards Syria rather than in the direction of Europe, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told public radio on Friday.
Turkey hosts some three million migrants, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to “let them out” if Europe fails to take over some of the financial burden, Orbán said in an interview to Kossuth Radio.
Migrants can break out towards Europe or Syria, their homeland, Orbán said. The latter needs to be stabilised for them to go back, he added.
“That is what seems to have happened there”, he said, adding that Turkey had set up a safe zone in northern Syria recently.
If Turkey “opens the gates to Europe”, hundreds of thousands of migrants will flood into Greece, the Balkans and eventually all the way to the Croatian or Hungarian border, he said.
“It is in Hungary’s basic interest that this does not happen,” Orbán said. “One Röszke was enough,” he added, referring to a clash between border guards and migrants camped on the Serbian side of the Röszke border crossing in 2015.
Regarding Turkey’s offensive on Syrian soil, Orbán said the US and Turkey had “made an agreement”, and so “we have no further foreign policy task here … other than agreeing with the two largest military powers of NATO.”
Regarding the October 13 local elections, Orbán said he “regretted” that voters had chosen opposition mayors in many localities.
On the other hand, the 52-53 percent support of ruling party candidates gives the government “renewed empowerment” to carry on with their work, so they are not going to change course, he said.
Regarding Budapest, Orbán said that since the fall of communism, the city had gone through two phases. In the first, under the liberal mayor, Gábor Demszky, the city was “filthy, reeking and its development stalled”. It was “unworthy of being the country’s capital,” Orbán said, adding that the government had been forced to bail out Budapest from 200 billion forints (EUR 607.8m) of debt.
“I don’t understand how honouring Gábor Demszky can even be considered,” Orbán said, referring to Mayor Gergely Karácsony’s plan to award honorary citizenships to the former mayors, Demszky and István Tarlós. “Would that be for the insolvency or for ruining the city? And humiliating [Fidesz-backed former mayor] Istvan Tarlos by making him take the honour alongside him is pure insolence,” Orban said.