Szijjarto: UNGA ‘failed as opportunity to bring Ukraine peace closer’

The ministry cited Peter Szijjarto as saying that the UN had originally been set up as a neutral forum for dialogue between warring parties.

Regarding an afternoon meeting of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, Szijjarto warned that in the war in Ukraine a nuclear power confronted a country supported by other nuclear powers. The warring parties had lately referred to their nuclear capabilities “openly, shamelessly”, and deployed arms containing depleted uranium, he said.

The minister said that in times like these, it was even more important that countries yet to join the treaty should do so, to ensure that no country would conduct nuclear tests, and lamented that the US and China were not among the signatories.

Later on Friday, Szijjarto is slated to speak at the meeting on the fight against tuberculosis, and said the sickness was a renewed challenge to Europe and the rest of the world.

Developing countries still see some 1.5 million deaths due to tuberculosis, he said. The efforts and resources consumed by the coronavirus pandemic also harmed systemic prevention, the foreign minister added.

As a result, the number of infections started to grow in Europe for the first time in 20 years, with the largest number of cases and steepest growth reported from Ukraine, he said.

In Hungary, the number of TB cases grew by 35 percent in annual comparison by 2022, he said.

Szijjarto said that growing case numbers were one more reason to put a swift end to the war in Ukraine.

Hungary, which has signed an agreement with the WHO to provide health care for refugees when necessary, is using various tests to comply with that agreement, he said.

Szijjarto also called on the “liberal mainstream” to “stop inspiring further waves of migration” as they pose health as well as security risks.