The foreign minister said Hungary supports Jordan in preserving its stabilizing role in the Middle East with the aim of preventing the region from becoming a source of new migration waves.
Following talks with Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi in Amman, Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said discussions concerning important international challenges took a back seat during the Covid pandemic, presenting Europe with serious security threats. Middle Eastern security and migration are key issues affecting central Europe’s security, he added.
The minister said Jordan, one of Hungary’s most important allies in the region, is receiving support to help migrants locally, before they can be “used as political weapons thrust onto Europe”. Within the framework of a NATO project, Hungary has delivered 10 ventilators to Jordan, while as part of a Polish-Hungarian aid scheme, Hungary is providing medical equipment worth HUF 200 million (EUR 540,000) to a hospital which is treating Syrian refugees among others, Minister Szijjártó said. Hungary, he added, is also providing HUF 700 million of support to Jordanian Christian communities as a contribution to their operational costs as well as to provide aid to refugees. The ministers also signed an agreement on offering 400 scholarships to Jordanian students planning to study in Hungary.
Photo credit: Facebook/Szijjártó Péter