Hun­gary deliv­ers ven­ti­la­tors to Kyrgyzstan

Hun­gary has deliv­ered 20 ven­ti­la­tors to Kyr­gyzs­tan, For­eign Min­is­ter Péter Szi­jjártó said on Wednes­day after talks in Bishkek, adding that Hun­gary was pre­pared to help the coun­tries that it had received assis­tance from when it found itself in a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion because of the nov­el coro­n­avirus pandemic. 

The pan­dem­ic has brought about many unpre­dictable and unex­pect­ed devel­op­ments, the min­is­ter said over the phone from the Kyr­gyz cap­i­tal, adding that it was “impos­si­ble to know who will find them­selves in trou­ble and when”. This makes inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion all the more impor­tant, he said. 

Hun­gary brought the ven­ti­la­tors to Kyr­gyzs­tan because the country’s health-care sec­tor are close to being over­bur­dened, Szi­jjártó said. He added that since Hun­gary had pro­cured the health acces­sories nec­es­sary to mount an effec­tive response to the epi­dem­ic, it could afford to bring the ven­ti­la­tors to Kyr­gyzs­tan with­out jeop­ar­dis­ing its own prepa­ra­tions even for a worst-case sce­nario. In addi­tion Hun­gary has also deliv­ered a ship­ment of med­i­cine donat­ed by Aus­tria, the min­is­ter said.

Szi­jjártó not­ed that when Europe and specif­i­cal­ly Hun­gary had faced seri­ous chal­lenges con­cern­ing the pan­dem­ic, “each and every mem­ber of the Tur­kic Coun­cil came to our assistance.”

“Now, the tables have turned and Cen­tral Asia is in big­ger trou­ble than Europe and those who had helped Hun­gary back then are now ask­ing for our help,” the min­is­ter said. 

To ensure that the two sides can count on each oth­er in the future as well, “it is only nat­ur­al that we’re now help­ing those who are in a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion because when we were the ones in a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion, they helped us,” he added. Because the pan­dem­ic also affects the econ­o­my, Hun­gary must act now to ensure that Hun­gar­i­an busi­ness­es are in the best pos­si­ble posi­tion to be suc­cess­ful in the new glob­al eco­nom­ic order that will emerge from the pan­dem­ic, Szi­jjártó said. 

Now is the time to lay the ground­work for the pres­ence and suc­cess of Hun­gar­i­an busi­ness­es in cen­tral Asia, he added. To this end, Hun­gary and Kyr­gyzs­tan reached an agree­ment on the avoid­ance of dou­ble tax­a­tion and finalised deals on the mutu­al pro­tec­tion of invest­ment projects which will soon be signed, Szi­jjártó said.

Hun­gar­i­an phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prod­ucts are expand­ing their already strong pres­ence on the Kyr­gyz mar­ket, he said, adding that Hun­gar­i­an busi­ness­es will also par­tic­i­pate in inter­na­tion­al radioac­tive waste dis­pos­al projects. Szi­jjártó also under­lined the impor­tance of the sta­bil­i­ty of Cen­tral Asia from the per­spec­tive of Euro­pean secu­ri­ty, say­ing that the region was espe­cial­ly exposed to ter­ror­ism, Islam­ic extrem­ism and chal­lenges stem­ming from Afghanistan. 

Hun­gary sup­ports mak­ing Kyr­gyzs­tan a mem­ber of the Unit­ed Nations Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil, the min­is­ter said, under­scor­ing the impor­tance of aid­ing Cen­tral Asian coun­tries as part of the inter­na­tion­al community’s coop­er­a­tion on secu­ri­ty and counter-ter­ror­ism mea­sures. Szi­jjártó also expressed Hungary’s sup­port for a strate­gic part­ner­ship deal between the Euro­pean Union and Kyr­gyzs­tan, say­ing the agree­ment should be signed as soon as possible.

Source : dai​lynew​shun​gary​.com