PM Orbán: NATO’s task is not to win wars

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said late on Wednesday that NATO should make efforts to achieve peace, not win wars going on around it.

In a video message posted on social media from Washington, DC, where he is participating in a summit marking the 75th anniversary of the defence alliance, Orbán said NATO was established 75 years ago with the goal of protecting the security of its members.

Today, however, it seems to be moving away from its original purpose, behaving more and more like a war organisation, he added. One of the signs of this, Orbán said, was that NATO was taking an increasingly active role in the Russia-Ukraine war.

“In our opinion, this is dangerous and even irresponsible because no one can see how this will end or where we will end up,” he warned.

He said he will argue that NATO should return to its original spirit. “NATO should not win the wars going on around it, but the peace,” he said. “For this, we should primarily develop our own defence capabilities.”

“On behalf of Hungary, I will, therefore, confirm today that we will not participate in the NATO-Ukraine mission. At the same time, we will fully comply with our obligations regarding the development of Hungarian defence capabilities,” Orbán said.

Hungarian defence minister: NATO world’s strongest defence alliance

NATO is still the world’s strongest defence alliance, and it stands ready to defend itself and its members, the defence minister said after a summit of the alliance in Washington, DC. Referring to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky said in a statement that the organisation, after 75 years of its existence, faced mounting security challenges.

“The main aim of the summit is to strengthen transatlantic unity,” he said. The minister said talks had centred on support for Ukraine and reinforcing collective defence, as well as cooperation between Pacific partner countries and the European Union.

Allies, he added, would strengthen their commitment to supporting Ukraine but such efforts carried the risk of prolonging the war, while the mission in Ukraine and multi-year financing mired NATO in the conflict to an ever greater extent.

Szalay-Bobrovniczky reiterated Hungary’s decision to stay out of this process, which, he added, would only lead to escalation.

No Hungarian money or troops to Ukraine

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, he further noted, had agreed with the incumbent and incoming NATO secretaries general that Hungary will not provide money or troops for initiatives in Ukraine, though neither would it prevent allies from doing so.

He noted that Hungary has hit its target of 2 percent of GDP defence spending and its development expenditure put it second among NATO allies.

Hungarian soldiers take part in NATO operations and measures to strengthen the alliance, he said, contributing to air policing in Kosovo, Iraq, and the Baltic countries while hosting a multinational divisional command that fits into the NATO command system and a multinational ground battle group.

Further, the defence industry, a growing part of Hungary’s economy, also played a significant role in relation to Hungary’s NATO activities, he said.

Read also:

• PM Orbán arrived in Washington while NATO allies call him Putin’s useful idiot – read more HERE
• Hungarian government prepares ‘anti-war action plan’ – Details in THIS article

Featured image: President Biden (l), PM Orbán (c) and Jens Stoltenberg (r) at the Washington NATO summit.