Hungary’s foreign minister has said a new world order is taking shape, bringing with it new security risks that Europe and the world must be ready to tackle.
Ahead of the United Nations’ inaugural Nelson Mandela Peace Summit in New York, Péter Szijjártó, minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said the meeting should be used to identify the factors that pose the biggest threat to global security and world peace.
According to MTI, the minister highlighted three such factors: migration, the mistreatment of minorities and religious persecution.
In regard to migration, the minister said the problem persisted because “Europe is still incapable of speaking straightforwardly about it or making it clear that only legal entry to Europe is allowed.”
Minister Szijjártó said Hungary was also a victim of the mistreatment of minorities. He argued that ethnic Hungarians in western Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region were facing “systematic intimidation and the Ukrainian state wants to take away their rights”.
The minister added that the view that national minorities are potential sources of conflict rather than assets is prevalent in many parts of the world.
On the topic of religious persecution, the minister called it “especially sad” that Christianity “has become the most persecuted religion in the world”.
The minister also highlighted that a separate meeting of European Union foreign ministers is to be held in New York to discuss the situation in Syria and Libya. Europe, he said, must find a way to “stop Libya from becoming a passageway - because now illegal migrants can pass through Libya unimpeded, they can board vessels and arrive at Europe’s southern shores.”