Budapest does not want military forces of other NATO member states to be deployed on its territory. In addition, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó considers the sanctions against Russia imposed so far a failure
“No, we have not agreed to it and we are not going to agree to it, because we already have NATO troops on our territory. It is the Hungarian armed forces – they are in good shape to provide security. That is why we do not need any additional military on our territory”, – Szijjártó said.
According to him, the current situation between Russia and Ukraine should be resolved by diplomatic, not military means. In the minister’s assessment, it should be done by Russia together with Western countries.
Commenting on possible future sanctions against Russia, Szijjártó called previous sanctions against Moscow a failure.
“Sanctions should only be imposed if something happens. Secondly, if we are talking about sanctions, they are clearly not working. We did not want to destroy European unity and so we did not veto them. We have always approved these decisions. But if we talk about sanctions, they have failed. They did not lead to success. If you look at the trade between Russia and the big Western European countries, you will understand the reason why. French and German trade with Russia increased after the sanctions were imposed. So my position is that if we talk about further sanctions, we must inevitably do an analysis of their actual impact”, – said the Hungarian Foreign Minister.