NATO transit: Mr. Zsolt Németh's meeting with NATO ambassadors

Dátum: 2003-02-25 17:27:00, eredeti URL: http://archiv.fidesz.hu/index.php?Cikk=7932
KCMDB-be feltöltve: 2024-05-04 18:05:35.618515, Feltöltő: fidesz_hu_scraper_v2

Mr. Zsolt Németh, vice-chairman of Fidesz and former Secretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, met with the ambassadors of NATO member states on 25 February 2003. The Iraqi crisis, assistance to Turkey and the unity of the Western world were the topics on the agenda.

Mr. Németh informed the ambassadors that Fidesz - Hungarian Civic Party, and therefore the Hungarian National Assembly, will only approve any military request if the action concerned has an adequate international mandate. (Such requests are approved by a two-thirds majority in Parliament.) It is not unrelated to the fact that the United States and several other countries have introduced draft resolutions in the United Nations Security Council.

As far as military assistance to Turkey is concerned, Fidesz has managed to persuade the government that only the troops and military equipment mentioned in NATO's Defence Planning Committee decision of 16 February may pass Hungarian soil and airspace, Mr. Németh said. (Parliament approved NATO's request on 24 February.) He called attention to the fact that the government had wanted, for an entire week, to force a resolution through the Hungarian Parliament under which transit would have been enabled for other types of troops and equipment, as well. The ambassadors of NATO member states agreed that NATO's consensus of 16 February was a hard-won one and, therefore, a wider authorisation in one of the member states would have overriden the original decision.

Answering to questions, Mr. Németh said that the ambassadors did not consider the full week of deliberations on the parliamentary approval as wasted time. However, Fidesz has been ready for seven days to vote on a text suiting the original NATO decision, and its passage was being hindered by the government's intention to extend the scope of the resolution.

Mr. Zsolt Németh and the ambassadors agreed that the principal question at the present moment, beyond the issue if Saddam Hussein is managed to be disarmed, is whether the unity of the Western world is managed to be restored, or the recently experienced cleavages will deepen.

Budapest, 25 February 2003