Chief of Defence Pays Two-Day Visit to Slovakia

During the visit, Minister of Defence Peter Gajdos received the Chief of Defence on a courtesy call in Bratislava. At the meeting, the minister praised the many-sided jointly conducted activities of the soldiers of the two countries, including the numerous combined exercises, their co-deployment in UNFICYP in Cyprus and the mutual participation in the NATO Centres of Excellence and NATO Force Integration Units (NFIUs) operating in the two countries. As he said, the military cooperation between our countries has been excellent for many years, with regard to relationships at the level of military leaders and the level of individual soldiers.

The topics of discussion included the outstanding military cooperation in the Visegrád Four (V4) Group and the Slovak armed forces’ important contributions to the management of the migration crisis along the southern borders of Hungary. Gen. Dr. Tibor Benkő informed his hosts about the Zrínyi 2026 National Defence and Armed Forces Development Program, which is the largest and most comprehensive modernization program in the Hungarian Defence Forces in the last 25 years. As part of it, Hungary will spend 20 per cent on armed forces development of the defence budget that will be continuously increasing until 2026.

At the end of the courtesy call, in recognition of his yearslong work in the interest of deepening military-to-military relations, Minister of Defence Peter Gajdos presented Gen. Dr. Tibor Benkő with the 1st Grade Memorial Medal of the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Slovakia.

In the official program, the delegation headed by Gen. Dr. Tibor Benkő paid a visit to the Slovak NFIU in Vajnory, where its members met the personnel of the NFIU, among them a Hungarian staff officer serving here. On the second day of the visit, the members of the delegation visited Training Centre Lest, where they were introduced to the work of the centre during static and dynamic displays.

Photo: General Staff