The NATO Council of Ukraine met this week, and Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, who we asked exclusively about NATO and the Russian-Ukrainian war, took part in it. We touched on it during the interview
- NATO’s new plan,
- the new role of NATO in the global world order,
- how, according to Péter Szijjártó, could there be peace,
- and also who the government wants to be the new NATO Secretary General.
What exactly does the association want?
After the foreign minister’s meeting, how do you see NATO’s position regarding the Russian-Ukrainian war changing since the outbreak of the war?
At the outbreak of the war, NATO made a decision that had two very important elements for us. One of them said that NATO is not a party to the war in Ukraine. According to the second, everything must be done to avoid a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia. In practice, this meant that the member countries send arms and money to Ukraine on a bilateral basis, and help with information where appropriate. Every single decision that NATO has made in the last two years has been examined through this lens. So there were two red lines that NATO was not a party to the conflict and direct confrontation between NATO and Russia should be avoided. So far, everyone has respected this. At the same time
this is the first time a case has occurred where these previously laid down consensuses, the already drawn red lines, are practically erased and crossed in a proposal.
The current proposal has several important elements: I want to increase NATO’s coordinating role in training and weapons deliveries.
Hungary is a member of this alliance, why exactly is it unacceptable? And why is it important to say no to planning?
Because with this decision, NATO is even closer to war. In fact, it can be said that NATO has never been as close to war as it could be with this plan. Although the pressure was enormous, and several people directly questioned the Hungarian position, the Hungarian delegation announced: Hungary is no longer willing to participate in the planning. We will definitely not participate in operations. Such activities cannot take place in Hungary, and he is not willing to contribute to this action with a single taxpayer’s forint. In fact, a five-year cycle of one hundred billion euros was added to the package, which the NATO member countries should add up. We would be burdened with about fifty-seven billion forints – this is nonsense. The European Union package of fifty billion euros is already there, now they want NATO to add another hundred billion euros to this.
As far as I know, no decision has been made yet. Why do you have to block something in the first place?
The decision this week was that the presentation and planning will begin. No decision has been made about the so-called mission itself or about a new role. Well, this is partly good news and partly bad. It’s good that there is no final decision yet, but the planning has started. Seeing the positions of the member countries, I think it is more likely that the planning will end with the launch of the mission. The bad news is that at every moment of the planning period, there will be enormous pressure on us to get on board. However, the government will persevere to the end, we will fight all the way, we will not give up our sovereign decision. We don’t even enter the planning phase, because if we are dragged into this part, it unfortunately means that it is very difficult to get out from there.
If I understand correctly, the package now has three legs, what are the specifics? What did we achieve by expressing our displeasure?
It looks exactly like a strong NATO coordination would develop in the arms transport, and there would be a joint transport to a logistics base in Poland, and from there to Ukraine, the arms would in principle not be transported within a NATO framework. As for training, Ukrainian soldiers would not be trained in Ukraine, but in the territory of NATO member countries. Several member countries were less enthusiastic about the financial leg. There was also a large country among them that said that we should not force this for the time being. In NATO, political decisions are made by consensus. Here it was about starting the planning process, since the vast majority of the member countries believe that this is a good direction, so the planning could start.
Do you think the idea came about under American pressure? Has Washington exerted pressure on this issue?
To this I can say, it is quite certain that decisions of such weight in NATO cannot be made against the will of the Americans. Anyway, this is a supplementary action on the part of NATO.
Why do you think so?
The Washington summit is coming, they want to give something to the Ukrainians. The most determined think that the Ukrainians should be formally invited. I would like to emphasize here that if we invite the Ukrainians to NATO, it would obviously increase the chances of the outbreak of the third world war. At the same time, since the vast majority of member countries do not share their invitations, a sense of absence has arisen in many. But the question was raised, what should we give the Ukrainians? And they came up with such a substitute action to have such a mission, a proposal to increase NATO’s coordinating role.
Is NATO no longer a defense alliance?
Until now, it was about NATO being a defense alliance, or at least that was the narrative. Do you think this has changed and is morphing into an offensive organization?
In the past two years, many decisions and steps have been taken by NATO that reinforce the perception that NATO’s original function, according to which it is a defense alliance, is increasingly beginning to wear out, and the image of an offensive alliance is emerging. This is completely contrary to the founding document of NATO, the intention of its founders. The fact is that NATO is not under attack, nor are any of its member states. Compared to this, nowadays, a significant part of the leaders of the countries suffer from such a war psychosis, as if we were all under attack.
HOWEVER, IT WOULD BE AN EXTREMELY ILLOGICAL STEP FOR RUSSIA TO ATTACK ANY NATO MEMBER COUNTRY.
In that case, without any doubt, the fifth article of the NATO basic treaty should be activated. It is quite obvious that the total military capacity of the alliance is much more powerful than that of Russia. So I don’t see any logic in Russia attacking a NATO member country. And I really hope we won’t witness this being provoked either. Obviously, a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is tantamount to the outbreak of World War III. So, for my part, I say that NATO should be kept along the lines of the rules laid down when it was founded, which says that it is a defense alliance.
How do you see the role of French President Emmanuel Macron, who believes that Europe should boost the capacity of its defense industry?
One has a strange feeling about him. While the French president is talking about the fact that he cannot rule out the sending of ground troops, this week the French defense minister held a one-hour telephone conversation with the Russian defense minister, which the international press skimmed over a bit, but I think it is a development that worth lingering over for a while. By the way, the Hungarian government welcomes this. We think it is correct that there is direct contact between the leaders of the NATO member countries and the leaders of Russia. Because in such a tense situation, if there is communication, it helps to prevent the biggest trouble – unfortunately, misunderstandings can always happen, and in a tense situation, these can cause great tragedies. So it is important to keep the communication channels open. On the other hand, the war must definitely end with negotiations.
This is often voiced by the government.
Believe me, this is very important: it must end with negotiations, because it will not be possible to declare a clear winner on the battlefield. The Ukrainians obviously cannot win, defeating Russia in a war is still impossible based on the experience of the past two years. Western arms shipments help Ukraine avoid a major defeat. So if that is the case, and neither side can claim a clear victory, then negotiations are certain to end the war. And for negotiations to take place, communication channels are needed. Human lives can be saved by keeping communication channels open.
In your opinion, those critical left-wing voices are not right that if we block the plans of the alliance, we will endanger the security of the country ?
The left’s attack is not surprising, because the left in Hungary is pro-war, and from this point of view, the pro-peace actions must be attacked. We stand up for peace, we are pro-peace. The Hungarian left is also pro-war, which is no wonder, since they are obviously being asked to do so from where they are financed. However, the Hungarian people made a clear decision on this issue in 2022, in the parliamentary elections, one and a half months after the outbreak of the war.
The ruling parties and the opposition took two diametrically opposed positions: the opposition said that it was necessary to participate in the delivery of weapons and, where appropriate, the sending of soldiers, and that cooperation with Russia should be terminated. In comparison, the government claimed that we should stay out of the war, this is not our war, we should protect the Hungarian people, we should have peace.
AND WE WON BY THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE OF ALL TIME, WITH THE MOST VOTES.
The Hungarian people have already decided this issue. So I understand the opposition’s struggle, because their clients have to be satisfied, but Hungary has decided that we want peace.
Does Hungary want the defeat of Ukraine?
If NATO members do not supply weapons, it is possible that Russia could not be stopped. In addition, by the fact that Hungary does not send weapons or help in any military field, it seems that we do not want to stop the Russian aggression.
His current statement could be true, or would have a basis in truth, if the arms deliveries of the others had stopped the Russian offensive so much.
WE DON’T KNOW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF THE UKRAINIANS HAD NOT GOT WEAPONS.
Maybe peace would have already been established. Since that didn’t happen, we don’t know. However, we do know one thing: the expectations associated with the arms shipments have not come close to being confirmed. In the last two years, the leaders of the arms-suppliing countries claimed that with these steps, Ukraine can achieve success on the battlefield, but this is not the case. Arms deliveries did not help Ukraine to achieve a positive shift on the battlefield.
THE ARMS SHIPMENTS DID NOT PROVIDE AN ADVANCE AGAINST THE RUSSIANS.
They simply increased the number of weapons involved in the war and made the destruction greater. If the Western countries and the Hungarian left had only acted for the sake of peace in half the time they spent pro-war propaganda, the lives of tens of thousands of people could have been saved. The fact that the thirteen sanctions package was unsuccessful does not mean that a fourteenth should be tried. According to the government, this conflict can be concluded through negotiation.
Yes, he has said this before, and some member of the government says it every day. However, what exactly does this mean? Is there a peace plan that is appropriate now, or is this just what the government is saying?
We demand all peace plans, because they are quite simply about peace, it is right that there are peace plans. The problem is that there is no dialogue about these plans, parallel communication can be observed. Obviously, no peace plan is fulfilled if one of the parties to the war is never present at the negotiations on the given peace plan. From now on, unfortunately, there will be no solution. None of the leaders of the dominant countries now in office have the ability to act to bring the warring parties to the table. Everyone was captured by war psychosis. And with that, everyone made themselves unfit to talk about peace and act as mediators. Donald Trump has a chance to play the role of peacemaker and mediator in the shortest possible time. Because the United States, which is a country big and strong enough to produce a strong president.
What makes you think that Trump would bring peace?
Politics is an experiential genre. When Donald Trump was the president of the United States, there was no big war, there was basically peace in the world, rather difficult cases went in the direction of agreements. Look at the US-China negotiations at the time, the Abraham Accords. Next time, Donald Trump will have a chance to act with force that could end in a ceasefire and peace talks.
Could the new NATO Secretary General not bring peace? Who does the Hungarian government want as the new leader of the federation?
Nowadays, there is a consensus in NATO – and no one disputes this – that the biggest threat, risk, and challenge to the transatlantic region comes from the east. The biggest challenges come from the east. This is also why many decisions were made that we have always supported, that NATO’s eastern end should be strengthened. This was continuously supported by the Hungarian government. But the question is rightly raised that this is not the first time in the history of NATO that the Secretary General comes from this region. Without revealing what happened in the closed session: I received support and a supportive speech in this case from a very surprising place – at the council meeting, it came from the foreign minister of a country from whom we have not received much good in the recent period.
The other part of the question is the nomination of Mark Rutte. So we are talking about a defense alliance. An alliance where we do not decide on economic cooperation, customs, or trade issues, but on whether we will die for each other. In such a defense alliance, there must be a 100 percent basis of trust, because decisions can be made on matters of life and death. Obviously, we cannot speak of a hundred percent trust base in the case of a person who openly wanted to force us to our knees. Because if he wanted to bring us to our knees in his previous position, what is the guarantee that this will not be his intention now? A decision like this requires 100% trust, and we don’t have that.
(Cover photo: Péter Szijjártó. Photo: Zsófi Szollár / Index)
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2024-04-06 08:28:46