A neutral Hungary in NATO?

 

 

By Hungarian Community for Peace
 

The Hungarian Community for Peace (HCP) agrees with the government's neutral policy towards the conflict in Ukraine and considers the humanitarian aid provided to those fleeing the fighting to be right. The caring, helpful  attitude is worthy of our country and the Hungarian people, the Hungarian Community for Peace said in a resolution issued on Saturday.

With our humane attitude, we are paving the way for a European value system that can create peaceful coexistence on the basis of the principle of one and indivisible security and pave the way for the common development of peoples.

Hungary must move forward on the path of collective security! It must recognize Russia’s right to security, not oppose it, as its allies do in a U.S.-led NATO. We need active neutrality in order to create a pan-European security system in which the two sides of Europe mutually guarantee each other's security and move towards peaceful cooperation based on mutual benefits rather than trenching.

NATO's attitude towards Russia weakens Hungary's security in the conflict zone in Eastern Europe, and the policy of sanctions and embargoes is holding back Hungary's development. It is thought-provoking that Hungary's allies are interested in weakening our energy security and financial stability, not in strengthening it. Evidence is that they want to thwart the construction of Paks-2 nuclear plant despite the fact that it is essential for our power supply. The stability of our banking system has been challenged by the bankruptcy of Sberbank. The trade, financial and tourism sanctions imposed on Russia, which were also voted on by the Hungarian government, are against our national economic interests.

Although a policy of sanctions that violates international law harms Russia, it harms us even more. Russia's history proves that it has been able to withstand much more difficult situations. It is foreseeable that the sanctions policy will also have detrimental consequences for the Western economy. The first consequence is the already rising prices and inflation.

According to the HCP, it is a mistake to classify the Kiev system as “friendly” and to ensure solidarity despite its refusal to implement the Minsk agreements since 2014, trampling on the principle of equality of peoples, nations and religious communities, dividing society into indigenous and non-indigenous, first and second class people, committing genocide in Donbass, and terrorizing the Hungarian and Ruthenian populations of Transcarpathia in the name of a “unified nation-state”.

The Ukrainian government made an alliance with neo-Nazi and far-right forces that considered the extermination of the Russians their main goal. The United States and NATO turned a blind eye to it because the Kiev regime was willing to serve its anti-Russian interests and its main goal, the fragmentation of Russia and the division of its natural treasures according to historically known imperial logic.

According to the HCP, the Hungarian government knows exactly what happened, why, and what led to the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Russia's three main security demands have been and remain that the former Soviet republics, including Ukraine, should not be a member of NATO, that no offensive weapons, including nuclear weapons, should be placed on their territory, and that NATO should retreat beyond its 1997 borders. NATO has refused to meet either condition. We are sorry that the Hungarian government did not express a dissenting opinion either! Yet, like us, he is well aware that the United States and its allies have broken their promise not to expand NATO to the East and not to include former socialist countries in the Western military bloc. Despite Russia's request to Western states to withdraw their forces from near Russia's borders, NATO remained adamant. After such precedents, Moscow committed itself to military action in Ukraine.

Hungary has an interest in the demilitarization, denazification and neutrality of Ukraine. The security of both Hungary and the Hungarians of Transcarpathia can win with it. We must be aware that Russia will not renounce the demilitarization of Ukraine even if it makes peace with it sooner or later, because it does not want to occupy its neighbor, but to eliminate the danger of it being used for dubious purposes against Russia by a power 8,000 kilometers away.

The HCP draws the government's attention to the fact that one of Russia's top three demands is expected to be met even after Russia neutralizes Ukraine. We are thinking of NATO's retreat beyond its 1997 borders. This means that NATO troops must be withdrawn from our country and other former socialist countries, as demanded by Moscow, and NATO bases and infrastructure must be dismantled.

The Hungarian Community for Peace recommends that the government face the new demands of our changing world, take note of the fact that there is life outside NATO, and even as a member of NATO we have the opportunity to take a step towards neutral Hungary within a pan-European security system.