It is still the afternoon in Washington, which means that individual talks between NATO members are continuing in full swing. Prime Minister Viktor Orban shared on his Facebook page on Wednesday that "NATO started as a peace project 75 years ago. And it wouldn't hurt to remind ourselves of this today". He also posted a video in which he said the summit was starting in a few minutes. "NATO was founded 75 years ago to protect the security of its members. Recently, however, it seems to have moved away from its original purpose and is increasingly behaving like a war organization," the PM pointed out.
"One sign of this is that NATO is taking an increasingly active role in the Russia-Ukraine war. In our view, this is dangerous and even irresponsible, because no one can foresee how this will end and where we will end up," Mr Orban warned. He then shared the position he would be representing at the summit:
I will argue today that NATO should return to the spirit of its original purpose and work towards winning peace, instead of the wars around it.
"In order to achieve this, we first have to improve our own defense capabilities," he said, adding that "on behalf of Hungary, I will therefore confirm today that we will continue to not participate in NATO's Ukraine mission, but that we will fully comply with our obligations to develop Hungarian defense capabilities".
