FM Szijjártó: NATO had begun to “blur its own red lines”

Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, has said he expects an “elemental struggle” in connection with a proposal by NATO regarding a mission in Ukraine in the coming weeks, underlining, however, that Hungary did not want to train Ukrainian soldiers or deliver weapons to its north-eastern neighbour despite the “enormous pressure” it was under to do so.

Szijjártó about NATO

 Addressing a meeting of ruling Fidesz’s parliamentary group on Monday, Szijjártó said NATO had begun to “blur its own red lines” that said the alliance was not party to the war in Ukraine and that everything possible had to be done to prevent a direct confrontation with Russia.

“And now … the secretary general felt that it would also be worthwhile for NATO to do something, because we can’t have NATO just sitting around for two years with only its member states and the European Union taking the steps that endanger global security,” Szijjártó said.

The minister said NATO wanted to step up its coordination of weapons deliveries and the training of Ukrainian troops, and was planning to approve a 100 billion euro aid package. “Hungary, however, doesn’t want to take part in this in any form,” he added.

“We want to stay out of this completely,” Szijjártó said. He said Hungary wanted its soldiers to be exempt from participating in such a mission and did not want “anything relating to these types of operations happening on Hungary’s territory”. Neither does Hungary want any of its taxpayers’ money to be used for the mission, he added.

Hungary, he said, was under intense pressure to take part in the mission, pointing out that the other two NATO countries that had been on the fence had been persuaded to join the common position, and Hungary was now on its own.

“Everyone has been sucked in, and we’re on our own. And we’ll be completely alone in the battles in the coming weeks,” he said.

Szijjártó said work was already underway in Brussels on putting together the “hinterland” of the operation. “And we’re being pushed in,” he insisted. “We’ve more or less succeeded in getting them to accept, politically, that we don’t want to participate in this, but as I see it, they want to at least try to push us into the financial side of the story.”