Hungary’s top diplomat on Tuesday warned that NATO membership for Ukraine would spark World War III.
During a press briefing in Budapest following a Hungarian-Serbian Joint Economic Commission meeting, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto observed that the conflict would be triggered by the NATO members’ mutual self-defense clause, per a foreign ministry statement cited by local media.
According to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, an armed attack against one member would be considered an attack against all and require all to take collective defense measures.
Szijjarto said that most other NATO foreign ministers have taken the same position in private: “I think that anyone with common sense who thinks this through does not want to create this danger,” he said. “So the Hungarian position is clear: There is no possibility for Ukraine to join NATO.”
Ukraine applied for fast-track NATO membership on September 30, 2022, seven months after Russia launched its invasion and then annexed Ukrainian territories along their shared border.
Ukraine’s candidacy has been publicly supported by a majority of member states, especially those in Eastern and Central Europe such as Poland and the Baltic states.
In a joint statement released following a summit in Washington, D.C., in July, NATO leaders said they will “continue to support it on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership.”
Ukraine will be invited to join the grouping once it completes the required economic, security and democratic reforms and member states agree on its ascension, the statement said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has cited NATO’s eastward expansion as one of the drivers behind what he calls the “special military operation” in Ukraine. Putin has also maintained that Kyiv must abandon its bid for membership and cede four of its regions as prerequisites for any peace talks or a ceasefire.
