Szijjártó: Hungary certainly cannot support Mark Rutte's election as NATO Secretary General

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó made a pointed statement on Tuesday, when answering a question about the potential election of Mark Rutte as NATO Secretary General at a press briefing held jointly with Mathias Cormann, Secretary General of the OECD, saying that the election of Mark Rutte as NATO Secretary General is something Hungary certainly cannot support.

"I can tell you one thing. We most certainly cannot support electing a man to the post of NATO Secretary General who has previously sought to bring Hungary to its knees. It would be very strange if the Hungarian government were to support the candidacy of such a person."

– Szijjártó said at the end of the press conference, when asked whether the Hungarian government could support the election of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte as the new NATO chief in place of Jens Stoltenberg, who will be leaving in the autumn.

Rutte has the support of several key alliance members, but the Turks and Hungarians, who have their own views on the matter, could complicate things for him, as the election of the NATO Secretary General requires full consensus. His main rival could be Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, who could bring the skeptical eastern member states to his side, but is unlikely to succeed without the support of the Americans, who are backing the Dutch prime minister.

Szijjártó made several other notable statements at the end of the press conference. Commenting on French President Emmanuel Macron's statements from last week about the potential deployment of Western troops to Ukraine, he said that there was no evidence to support these claims, and that in the past two years NATO has never considered changing its previous decision about not intervening directly in the Russian-Ukrainian war.

He also reacted to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk's criticism of him after he posted a video from an international conference in Antalya, Turkey, last week, where he was seen chatting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, on the day of the funeral of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, the circumstances of whose death are still unclear. According to Szijjártó, he was seated at a table with six or seven foreign ministers at the gala dinner, and “if one sits next to a fellow foreign minister, one usually has a conversation. The fact is that as foreign ministers, we have a responsibility to keep in touch with each other.”

He added that in his view, keeping in touch with those with whom you do not agree on everything is an achievement in diplomacy, and if there's an opportunity or a need in the future, he will continue to talk to his Russian colleague. He added that in recent years, he has been approached by several European politicians asking for his help in contacting the Russians, arranging a meeting or just sending them a message. The full press conference can be viewed here.