Migration requires global solution, Szijjarto tells UN

New York, October 3 (MTI) – Migration is a global problem that requires a global solution, the Hungarian foreign minister said at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York City on Saturday.

The UN must play a leading role and take its place among the main players on the global political and economic scene, Peter Szijjarto said.

He proposed a five-point action plan that aims to solve the migration crisis with joint international steps by stabilising crisis zones in the Middle East and North Africa, introducing global hosting quotas, with the big powers taking their fair share, and boosting the UN’s role as a peacekeeper while achieving its sustainable development goals.

Szijjarto stressed that a broader range of forces must be joined together, including cooperation between the transatlantic alliance and Russia, in the interest of defeating the Islamic State terrorist organisation as well as politically settling the crisis in Syria. He expressed understanding with the German chancellor, who believes that achieving a solution requires expanding cooperation to the maximum degree.

Szijjarto said that the reasons for the migrant crisis were wars and armed conflicts, of which 15 started or restarted in just the last five years, more difficult access to water and climate change.

It is no exaggeration to say that Europe has had to face an unprecedented number of serious challenges since WWII, he said, citing the Ukrainian war as well as the “frozen conflicts” between five of six of the countries in the EU’s Eastern Partnership initiative.

Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine are participants in the initiative.

Szijjarto said it was unsustainable for the European Union, with 7-8 percent of the global population and accounting for 15-16 percent of global GDP to pay out half of the world’s welfare.

“What we have to face is not a refugee crisis, but much more, it is much more complicated than that,” he said. He added that neither in Europe nor anywhere else in the world had a consensus on the nature or the scale of the problem been reached.

This is a migration of people with no end in sight, he said, adding that Hungary lies on the most-travelled route along their path.

Szijjarto said the migration includes asylum-seekers, economic migrants and foreign militants.

He blamed the migration wave on bad political decisions that had destabilised entire regions as well as the spread of the Islamic State, against whom few measures have been successful.

Wars have forced some 60 million people from their homes, while climate change has produced 25-30 million migrants, whose number could reach 100 million by 2050, Szijjarto said.

Without global solidarity to meet the challenge, Europe, carrying a big part of the burden, could be destabilised, first on the periphery and later in the centre, he warned.

Szijjarto mentioned Hungary’s contribution to international efforts, citing a 110-strong contingent in the Kurdistan region of Iraq as well as UN peacekeepers in places such as Cyprus, Western Sahara and Lebanon.

He urged the UN to take steps against human smugglers and stressed the importance of controls at European borders, while adding that this must be done by joint European forces.

Szijjarto said that the EU should take over financing for maintaining and expanding refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.

Speaking as a politician representing a Christian country, Szijjarto rejected anti-Muslim sentiment, saying that the Islamic faith is not the root of the problem.

Photo: MTI

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters