Ambassador András Simonyi spoke today
on C-SPAN'S "Washington Journal" about Hungarian military
presence in Iraq. (Excerpt.)
Connie Doebele: Joining us live
in our studio is the Ambassador to the United States from Hungary, András
Simonyi. Tell me, how many troops does Hungary currently have in Iraq?
András Simonyi: We have 300
troops there, a transportation battalion taking care of their own force
protection. It's a pretty good and strong group of soldiers.
CD: Have you lost any troops?
AS: We lost one soldier,
unfortunately, but the others are doing fine and are making a great,
courageous effort.
CD: What kind of decisions has
Hungary and your leadership made in terms of the future of those troops in
Iraq?
AS: Well, the government wanted
to stay at least until the elections are over and maybe a little longer.
Unfortunately, their proposal was not supported by the opposition parties.
It requires a two-thirds majority in the Hungarian Parliament to have
troops abroad. Now, what really happened is that the opposition said they
cannot support it. But we're not withdrawing. What we are doing is we will
go back through NATO, so you should know the Hungarian flag will fly in
Iraq. We will want to support the Iraqi stabilization process. We want to
help Iraq to build its democracy.
CD: You know I don't have it with
me, but the New York Times headline was: "Hungary Pulls Troops
from Iraq." Is this a misconception?
AS: Hungary withdraws its troops
as the troops are there now but we'll send back troops in another way. We
are not about to abandon the coalition. Hungary will be in Iraq.
