It is untenable that the United Nations spends large sums of money on supporting migration but none on combating terrorism, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on Tuesday.
He was speaking at a Vienna conference jointly organized by the United Nations, the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
“We call the United Nations to include combating terrorism in its budget and spend more on the global fight against terrorism and less on supporting migration, as this is in the interest of all of the world’s citizens,” Szijjártó said. He added that supporting migration and portraying it as one of the world’s most positive phenomena is extremely dangerous for all humankind.
Szijjártó said that the United Nations’ global migration compact only encourages people to leave their homeland, thereby endangering all the transit and destination countries. He said that with advances made by the Islamic State in the Middle East and Africa and a rising tide of immigration that began 45 years ago, it means the idyllic state of affairs that left Europe without having to face a significant terrorist threat is now over.
“After 2015, and in parallel with a rise in mass migration, we had to suffer here in Europe over 30 severe terrorist attacks perpetrated by persons with a migration background,” Szijjártó said.
He pointed out that in order to restore safety in Europe, four specific measures are required: defeating Jihadist organizations definitively, protecting the borders, supporting those chased away by terror by helping hem return to their homes, and making combating terrorism the main task of the United Nations.
He said those thousands of fighters originally from Europe who have joined the ranks of the Islamic State in the past years must be prevented at all costs from returning to Europe where they can act as “lone wolves” threatening public safety on the continent.
Szijjártó also pointed out that Hungary was doing its part in this effort, as over the past few years the country spent $1 billion on defending its borders.
Title image: Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó speaking at an anti-terrorism conference in Vienna on February 11. (MTI/Mátyás Borsos)
