Diplomacy

  • Print Friendly, PDF & Email
  • Send to Kindle

Hungarian Chemical Weapons Response Renews Scrutiny of Stance on Iran, Proxies

by TheTower.org Staff |

U.S. officials have been pushing their Hungarian counterparts to robustly condemn the use of chemical weapons by the Bashar al-Assad regime. Hungary’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had issued a statement condemning the use of chemical weapons in general, and welcoming an investigation to find out “who was responsible for this terrible and unjustifiable action.” The U.S. wants something more specific:

The United States has requested the Hungarian government to join the US in condemning Syria’s government for the use of chemical weapons, the US embassy in Budapest told MTI on Friday. “We urge the Hungarian government to join us in condemning publicly the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons and in urging the international community to hold the regime accountable for this violation of a bedrock international norm,” the embassy said.

Hungary has a tangled relationship with Syria and, more so, with the Syria’s Iranian sponsor. Budapest severed relations with Damascus early during the Syrian crisis, but there are deep undercurrents of pro-Iran sentiment in Hungary.

The far-right Jobbik party has 47 seats in the national parliament. It has been accused of violent nationalism, anti-gay bigotry, and deep anti-Semitism – and has been duly shunned by sectors of the international community and the Hnugarian public. From those bases – if nothing else – seeks warmer ties with Iran:

Erik Fulop, the first of five Jobbik politicians elected to run a Hungarian municipality. Shortly after taking office in 2010, Fulop set up a twinning arrangement between Tiszavasvari and the Iranian city of Ardabil, and a sign in Hungarian and Farsi near the office celebrates those ties. Observers say the announcement of the twinning arrangement was the first international event held in Hungary under Jobbik’s auspices and a mark of a growing partnership aimed at breaking through the isolation that both the party and the Iranian government are laboring under — Iran for its suspected nuclear weapons program and support for terrorism, Jobbik for its hyper-nationalism and anti-Semitism.

Party leader Gábor Vona said in Nov. 2012 that Israel “operates the world’s largest concentration camp,” according to Jobbik’s website. After describing Israel as a “terrorist state,” he dubbed Hungary “Europe’s Palestine.”

[Photo: The Israel Project]

tt