Hungary does not support Mark Rutte’s candidacy for NATO Secretary General, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó of Hungary said on Monday, 27 May. He added that full trust was a basic requirement in the alliance, and

the outgoing Dutch Prime Minister had in the past talked about ‘bringing Hungary to its knees’.

At the press conference held in Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureș), Romania, Minister Szijjártó welcomed the fact that Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, an ‘eastern candidate’ for the post, had emerged.

He said much talk focused on strengthening the alliance’s eastern flank but ‘it does not occur to anyone that

if a threat is from the East, then maybe the Secretary General should also be from the East’.

The minister went on to say that in NATO ‘you even have to die for each other, so it must be led by someone in whom we can trust 100 per cent’. He also confirmed that he had a tough debate with his Lithuanian counterpart in Brussels, Belgium earlier in the day. He insisted that Gabrielius Landsbergis was ‘one of the most pro-war politicians’ among the EU foreign ministers. ‘No matter how much someone shouts at me…I still favour peace,’ he stated.

Related articles:

Sources: MTI/Hungarian Conservative