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FM Szijjártó: NATO in state of ‘war psychosis’
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“NATO is in a state of war psychosis, which poses a serious risk of escalation,” Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Brussels on Thursday, adding that NATO should switch its strategy.
“All that was said in the meeting reflected that peace is needed as soon as possible; the situation on the battlefield clearly shows that the number of casualties and destruction will dramatically increase without a rapid diplomatic settlement,” the foreign ministry quoted Szijjártó as saying after a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council.
“Operations on the battlefield are clearly intensifying, with ever more serious consequences; all efforts should now focus on establishing peace in order to save lives and prevent further destruction,” the minister said. It was “bad news”, he added, that his position was “in minority within NATO”.
He quoted a participant in the meeting as saying that “the goal is not to achieve peace but to win the war.” “NATO is more or less characterised by that kind of war psychosis … most spoke today about how to increase weapons shipments to Ukraine,” he added.
Szijjártó said putting together such shipments was becoming more and more problematic, partly because many NATO member states “have already contributed nearly all the ammunitions in their reserves.” He noted that currently Hungary and the Czech Republic provide air policing in Slovakia because “Bratislava has given all their aircraft to Kyiv and they have not received new ones yet”.
It was also suggested that “warehouses should be emptied and all equipment handed over to Ukraine… Desperate remarks like that clearly show that mounting difficulties are an obstacle to arms shipments,” Szijjártó said. Those difficulties “are not just physical, not least because few weapons are left, but also because sending arms has proven futile in terms of the original goals,” he said.
“So far we have heard from the countries sending arms that those weapons would help Ukraine to battlefield victories … but this is not happening,” he said.
Hungary opposes boosting NATO’s coordination role in sending arms to Ukraine and training Ukrainian soldiers, “and will not participate in planning or in the activities themselves; neither will it contribute to financing,” Szijjártó said.
Szijjártó: NATO must strengthen counter-terrorism
NATO must strengthen its counter-terrorism activities with a view to ensuring unimpeded East-West trade, Szijjártó said, adding that European economic interests depended on smooth trade.
“The challenge posed by global terrorism is becoming ever more serious,” he told a press conference after a meeting of the NATO Council of Foreign Ministers, adding that terrorism threatened global security and trade, as well as East-West relations.
Hungary, he said, did not want a world “divided into blocs again”, and East-West cooperation should be as dense as possible. But connections that are key for Hungary and the Hungarian economy “are seriously threatened by terrorism in the Red Sea”, he added.
Referring to Houthi rebels operating off the shores of Yemen, Szijjártó said the terrorist organisation must not be allowed to cause “serious economic problems” for European businesses “after the economic shocks caused by the coronavirus and the war in Ukraine”.
Noting that cooperation with the Pacific region was among the topics of discussions at the meeting with representatives from Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, he said Hungary maintained close economic cooperation with countries of the Far East. Investments from the region “contribute significantly to the growth of the Hungarian economy, so for us the smoothness of East-West trade is a key issue. So we stand for strengthening NATO’s counter-terrorism stance,” the minister concluded.
Good reason not to approve Rutte’s appointment.
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Yes, a country at war can technically join NATO. The entry of new countries is governed by Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which states that any European state in a position to further the principles of the Treaty and contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area may be invited to join, provided there is unanimous agreement among existing members1. However, no nation that was a party to an ongoing conflict has ever been asked to join NATO. There is a case to be made that nations could join with portions of their territory under dispute or if disputes are resolved before joining2. The decision ultimately depends on the political agreement of the current NATO members1.
Allowing Ukraine into NATO will begin WWIII. Blinken, American Foreign Minister is in favor of Ukraine’s entrance because war will be fought only on EU soil. Biden and Blinken are true war mongers.
Hungary’s delay in Sweden’s accession to NATO has caused a stir. Hungary’s relations with the leading NATO power, the USA, are at a low point, and government-affiliated media repeatedly use harsh tones against the alliance. Even if the government is more cautious and continues to emphasize the importance of NATO membership for Hungary, many in the West are asking themselves: Can the ally Hungary really be relied upon if the worst comes to the worst?
At the end of February, the Hungarian parliament was the last to ratify Sweden’s accession. In this matter, Hungary was even overtaken by Turkey, which was long considered the biggest slowdown. This was “extremely” unpleasant, Tamás Varga Csiki from the Institute for Strategy and Defense Studies at the National University of Civil Service in Budapest told the Hungarian editorial team of Radio Free Europe.
Many people made similar comments in public and claimed that the dispute over Sweden’s NATO accession could massively damage Hungary’s relations with its allies. Even analysts and opinion makers who have a relatively friendly relationship with the government, such as former liberal politician Gábor Fodor or former diplomat Gergely Prőhle, state secretary in a previous Fidesz government, saw the government’s stance as potentially damaging.
But while the issues between Turkey and Sweden were well known to the public, the reason for the delay in the case of Hungary was – and still is – unclear. The ruling party primarily referred to the criticism of Hungary in the Swedish press and politics and called for “respect” towards Hungary, while pro-government media and the Hungarian Foreign Minister, Péter Szijjártó, also referred to what they saw as the pressure exerted on Hungary by the USA Ratification referred.
Hungary’s relations with the leading NATO power, the USA, are extremely tense. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán recently visited the United States but did not meet government officials. Instead, he visited Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and then said in an interview with Hungarian state television that Hungarian-American relations were poor and, in his view, could only be improved by a change of government in the United States.
The newspaper “Magyar Nemzet”, which is seen as the government’s mouthpiece, is not always so friendly towards the North Atlantic Alliance. Since the Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022, it has repeatedly published opinions that made NATO look very bad.
“[NATO’s] primary activity is clearly the advancement of US global economic and political interests. […] This is evident, among other things, in the aggressive eastward expansion after 1990, euphemistically referred to as ‘enlargement,'” the same newspaper wrote a year in a comment. Hungary joined NATO 25 years ago as part of this “aggressive eastward expansion”. And sometimes Hungary’s NATO membership itself is questioned: “If we continue like this, we will slowly get to the point where NATO membership is associated with more dangers than it offers security guarantees,” another journalist wrote in March of this year .
Although there is no direct evidence that the government is behind the harsh opinion articles, the experience of recent years shows that the state and government-affiliated media convey certain messages that are likely to convey antipathy or sympathy towards certain countries or alliance systems such as the European Union or NATO, repeat systematically.
Russia, for example, has been consistently portrayed positively or at least neutrally by state and government-affiliated media for years, while the West, particularly the European Union and the Democratic-led United States, are portrayed in a negative light.
Previous research has shown that public opinion changes in the long term according to these messages: sympathy for Russia increased, sympathy for the West decreased. An analysis by the think tank Globsec from 2023 also confirms this: The Hungarian public attributes responsibility for the war to Russia to a significantly lesser extent than the public in other countries in the region. Significantly fewer people also consider Russia to be a danger. According to the analysis, the government’s ongoing campaign and the “state-controlled media” contribute significantly to this result.
MDR
… and Hungary is the sole sane country? Our Politicians cannot convince one single other Member with their arguments?
Mr. Horn, review all statements made by Sweden about Hungary since 2015. The answer is obvious.