Speech by a representative of the Hungarian Community for Peace association and the Forum for Peace movement at the “peace summit” in Vienna

(Delivered on June 10, 2023)

Ladies and gentlemen! Dear Peace Summit!

Thank you for your invitation and kind hospitality!

I have read your suggestions, especially with regard to the Peace Call that the International Peace Bureau plans to issue on the peace summit.

The Hungarian Community for Peace and the Hungarian Forum for Peace, which I represent, are ready for civilian peace diplomacy with you, given that since 2014 we have accumulated serious experience in our discussions with ambassadors accredited in Budapest about the need to create a just and lasting peace. We asked them to respect the security needs of the Russians, because the Russian military intervention in Ukraine was triggered by the fact that they were not respected, but, on the contrary, by violating the gentlemen’s agreement of Gorbachev and Bush in Malta, NATO expanded to the East and now he wants to make Ukraine his equal rights partner at the summit in Vilnius.

We do not see how peace could result starting from your Peace Call, since in its first sentence you condemn Russia, which has the same right to live in safety as anyone else. Therefore, we do not sign this call and do not add our names to it.

What kind of peace do you want if you condemn the one with whom you want to make peace? Do you want to knock on the door of the Russian ambassadors with a statement condemning Russia? Have you thought about what kind of response you can expect? Russia should not be condemned, but it should be acknowledged that it wants a demilitarized, neutral Ukraine next door!

We do not condemn Russia even though we do not support the war. We know exactly why it happened. We do not replace the effect with the cause. The Russian military action was caused by the USA and NATO rejecting Russia’s legitimate security demands. If NATO had not done this, but had been honest about it, there would not be a war now! You know exactly what I’m referring to: Moscow’s diplomatic note to Washington and Brussels of December 15, 2021, which contains point by point what the Russian side wants.

When the Kremlin realized that it could not enforce its security demands through negotiations, it resorted to military means to enforce them. We can object to this, but we cannot dispute the right of a country to live in safety.

A peace summit cannot associate with those who deny the principle of indivisibility of security. That no one can guarantee their own safety at the expense of others. As NATO does against Russia.

Ladies and gentlemen!

It is not the Russian army that threatens America’s borders, but the American’s the Russian, 8 thousand kilometers from America!

We are convinced that a serious civil diplomacy cannot ignore such fundamentally important international agreements as those signed also by the Western side and then kicked up. I am referring to the Paris Charter for a New Europe signed on November 21, 1990 and the OSCE Summit in Istanbul in November 1999.

If the peace summit does not expect the practical realization of these, it will build its aspiration on shaky ground and place an obstacle in the way of its own peaceful aspirations.

See: https://bekekor.wordpress.com/2023/06/13/civilian-peace-summit-in-vienna-in-the-spirit-of-anti-russian/