Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Thursday that he wants to accelerate the development of the Hungarian army in order to defend itself against an attack coming “from any direction”, underlining that he does not consider the guarantees offered by NATO to be sufficient, AFP reports, quoted by Agerpres.
“NATO is very important, but I do not believe that Hungary’s military security has to rely on NATO,” said the conservative nationalist leader in an interview with Figyelo.
Hungary is a member of NATO since 1999 and thus enjoys the protection of the Western military alliance, which is holding a ministerial meeting this week in Brussels.
Budapest has been “committed for many years to a military development process, at the end of which Hungary will have an important military force to defend itself against an attack coming from any direction,” Viktor Orban said in an interview.
The head of the Budapest cabinet deplored the lack of solidarity of the Allies on the occasion of the arson of a Hungarian cultural center in February 2018 in neighboring Ukraine, a country aspiring to NATO integration.
“A bomb explodes in a center of the Hungarians in Ukraine, a few kilometers from the NATO frontiers and no one says anything, including the United States,” he said.
This interview was published three days after the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Budapest, during which Hungary and the United States announced a defense co-operation agreement aimed at facilitating the deployment of US forces on the Hungarian territory.
On the same occasion, Mike Pompeo urged Budapest to distance itself from Moscow, while Hungary is considered one of the most permeable countries to Russia’s interests in Europe.
Emphasizing that he is a fervent supporter of a European military force, Viktor Orban said on Thursday he is assuming “prosperous cooperation with Russia,” AFP notes.
Source: Digi24 (TFP translation)
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