The official position of Fidesz on NATO's military transit request

Dátum: 2003-02-25 14:11:00, eredeti URL: http://archiv.fidesz.hu/index.php?Cikk=7921
KCMDB-be feltöltve: 2024-05-04 18:05:32.313261, Feltöltő: fidesz_hu_scraper_v2

Last week, the Turkish government, under Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, requested assistance from NATO Allies, having considered its security threatened by the unfolding Middle East crisis. At the NATO Defence Planning Committee session of 16 February, the Allies decided to answer Turkey's security needs by reinforcing its defensive capabilities. The Allies' request for enabling the transit of defensive material destined to Turkey through Hungarian territory arrived to the Hungarian government the same day.

Under the Hungarian Constitution, such requests, if needed, must be approved by a two-thirds majority in Parliament. The government introduced a draft resolution to Parliament on 17 February, to be debated and approved in an extraordinary manner the same day. Extraordinary motions are dealt with by the Parliament suspending the House rules of procedure by a four-fifth majority. Due to the short deadline and certain ambiguities in the draft text, Fidesz rejected skipping the House rules procedure and asked for more time to deliberate upon the issue.

Fidesz considers it necessary that, if a war against Iraq turns out to be unavoidable, a new UN Security Council resolution be passed on the issue in order to muster adequate international legitimacy behind the use of force. At the same time, Fidesz expects to meet Hungary's international obligations under the North Atlantic Treaty - following Turkey's invocation of Article 4 and NATO's decision in response - to assist another member state in reinforcing its defenses in case of percieved security threats.

Therefore, at a caucus session on 18 February, Fidesz unanimously approved the transit authorisation motion with some amendments. These amendments are in fact textual guarantees that the transit authorisation will exclusively serve the defensive needs of Turkey, and will only cover troops and equipment necessary for reinforcing Turkey's defenses: the types of weapons systems mentioned by the 16 February NATO DPC resolution should be enumerated in the text of the resolution itself. It is to make sure that, at this stage, Hungary does not assist to a possible offensive action against Iraq. According to Fidesz, such an offensive action, as mentioned earlier, must be authorised by the UN Security Council.

Depending on a four-party agreement on a final draft version of the parliamentary resolution, the motion will be introduced and formally approved by Parliament.

Budapest, 19 February 2003