Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said the United Nations must multiply its resources on counter-terrorism.
Speaking in New York, Minister Szijjártó told public media that the UN had handled counter-terrorism action as a “stepchild” for a long time. “The role it was able to fulfil depended on the voluntary donations of member states,” he added. “For years we’ve been fighting for this situation to change”, and he said financing counter-terrorism is now part of the UN’s central budget. The UN’s counter-terrorism efforts are currently managed from New York and Budapest since the second largest unit of the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism operates in Budapest, he said. “Hungary therefore plays an important role in global counter-terrorism efforts,” he added. In addition to peacekeeping, counter-terrorism efforts must be among the most important tasks of the UN, considering that the world faces “the most severe threat of terror ever”, he said. Terrorism had already been at a very high level in Africa, the Middle East, South-East Asia and even in Europe as a result of the development of parallel societies emerging from migration waves to Western Europe, he added.