During the meeting of NATO Ministers of Defence in Brussels Hungarian Minister of Defence Mr Csaba Hende had separate talks as well with his American counterpart Mr Chuck Hagel on 22nd October.

After the negotiations Mr Hende told the Hungarian press that Mr Hagel thanked Hungary for two things: for the Hungarian contribution to the international operations in Afghanistan and for the involvement of Hungary in the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons because the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons “could make good use of the ten-strong expert team offered in a very timely and extremely rapid way.”

Answering a question of the Hungarian News Agency regarding the latter issue the Minister said that in his opinion in a couple days the decision could be made on whether the Organisation will require the work of the Hungarian experts. “Hungary was one of the first nations to realise that a participation in this operation would be equal to serving the peace in the real sense of the word,” Mr Hende emphasised.

The Minister also highlighted that since 2010 the number of Hungarian troops in Afghanistan had practically doubled. This strength will be gradually reduced as the International Security Assistance Force will be withdrawn in the end of 2014 and its mission is to be transformed into a training and advisory mission.

Mr Hende also mentioned that from 2015 much smaller foreign military forces will be deployed in Afghanistan but Hungary will take part in that operation too in accordance with its capacities. He also mentioned that from November the Hungarian Defence Forces would take over the command of a special operations team in which American, Estonian and Slovenian troops would be serving besides their Hungarian comrades. “This is such a high-level acknowledgement and confidence which is virtually unique and exceptional”, Mr Hende said emphasising that in the most sensitive and complex military activities American soldiers would also serve under Hungarian command.

The Hungarian Defence Minister also said that Hungary was ready to redeploy its forces withdrawn from Afghanistan in other joint missions, primarily in the NATO action in Kosovo or in the Althea mission or the European Union.

According to Mr Hende his American counterpart made a promise to provide support for the development of the Pápa airbase, for creating dual-purpose capabilities allowing both NATO and American – Hungarian bilateral cooperation. Currently 12 nations operate together a strategic transport capability which they would be unable to support independently. About the meeting of the Ministers of Defence of NATO member states the Hungarian politician said, the preparation of the summit meeting of Heads of States and Governments scheduled for next autumn in Great Britain had begun.

In the opinion of the Hungarian Minister of Defence the most important issue on the agenda of the NATO summit meeting should be the reduction of the so called “transatlantic capability gap”. He also underlined that in his opinion the North Atlantic Alliance should keep its gates open for prospective member states ready to join and able to meet the accession requirements. The Minister said there were consultations on the opportunities in the field of military capability development and Hungary has a positive approach to the German initiative aimed at having each larger member state work together with several smaller ones on making military capabilities more efficient and effective.

(Ministry of Defence)