Hungary contributes more than 100 troops to the new NATO-led mission which is to start next January in Afghanistan, and assists the financing of the Afghan National Security Forces with USD 500,000 per year between 2015 and 2017, the Minister of Defence said at a conference in Budapest on Thursday.
Speaking at a conference co-organized by the Hungarian Atlantic Council and the National University of Public Service, Minister Hende stated that the Afghanistan operation has been one of the largest enterprises in the history of the Alliance, adding that at NATO’s Wales Summit, the heads of states and governments agreed that this mission has been successful.
Minister Hende noted that following the end of the currently ongoing operation of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, the Resolute Support mission will be launched in next January, which focuses on training, advising and supporting the local forces.
Hungarian Chief of Defence Gen. Dr. Tibor Benkő gave a presentation at the conference, in which he said that Hungary had been criticized for not spending enough on defence, but the leaders of the Alliance have always spoke highly of the soldiers of the Hungarian Defence Forces, based on their performance in several international missions.
Currently nearly 800 troops of the Hungarian Defence Forces are serving on three continents, in 12 countries – Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Somalia, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Western Sahara, Cyprus, Lebanon, Egypt and Georgia – as part of international peace missions. Besides, more than 100 Hungarian soldiers are working in the UN, EU and NATO headquarters and commands. Sixty per cent of the soldiers deployed with missions are participating in NATO-led peace operations, around 30 per cent of them in EU-led ones, and some 10 per cent in UN-led peace operations.
The largest Hungarian contingent is currently serving in Kosovo, where approximately 350 Hungarian troops are serving with the NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR) contingent and also in individual and national positions.
At present, around 140 Hungarian troops are serving in Afghanistan in five contingents – Military Advisory Team (MAT), HDF Mi–17 Air Advisory Team (AAT), HDF Special Operations Task Group (SOTG), HDF ISAF CSS Logistic School Hungarian mentor team, National Support Element (NSE) – and also in individual positions.
Hungarian troops are also participating in several EU-led operations – in the EU Training Mission Mali (EUTM Mali), the EUFOR Althea contingent in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the advisory mission in Congo (EUSEC DR Congo), the EU Training Mission Somalia (EUTM Somalia), the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM Georgia), and the EU mission in the Central African Republic (EUFOR RCA).
From among the UN-led operations, the troops of the Hungarian Defence Forces are participating in the peacekeeping mission in the Western Sahara (MINURSO), the peacekeeping mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the peacekeeping operation in Cyprus (UNFICYP).
Twenty-six Hungarian soldiers and 16 Hungarian policemen are working with the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), an operation conducted in the Sinai Peninsula (Egypt) on the basis of an international agreement.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has been deployed in Afghanistan since the end of 2001, when the Taliban was ousted from power. The gradual transition of responsibility for security to the Afghans started in mid-2011, and has by now been almost completed. Most troops of the 100,000-strong ISAF are scheduled to have been withdrawn from the country by the end of 2014.
This July, then NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced that by the end of this year, ISAF would end the large-scale NATO-led combat mission in Afghanistan, which was joined by many partner nations besides the member states of NATO, bringing the total number of troop contributing nations to around 50. Next year, the non-combat Resolute Support mission is scheduled to start with much lower troop strength.
The NATO Secretary General said that the new international mission would be focused on training and advising, and may require a total of 8-12,000 troops.