Slovak–Serbian–Hungarian Training in Szolnok

From March 2016, the soldiers currently under training are going to fill key positions of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) mission. Ten personnel came to Szolnok from Slovakia and Hungary each, and one officer and one NCO from Serbia.

Beyond sharing the knowledge and putting it to practice, a further aim of the pre-deployment training was to make sure that the participants get to know each other, and develop good working relations among themselves during the joint work done by the members of the group, because these will greatly contribute to the smooth performance of mission-related duties in a later phase.

During the pre-deployment training, the opening lecture on the origin of the Cyprus conflict and the current state of negotiations was given by Péter Kacziba, a research fellow of the University of Pécs, who introduced the soldiers to the topic from a new angle, seen through “civilian eyes".

In what followed, the attendees learned about the UNFICYP standard operating procedures and the rules and process of handling incidents. In a media training session, they learned how to communicate with the press and had opportunity to experience what it is like to speak in front of the cameras. The training in negotiations techniques was a success, where the soldiers worked on the assigned problems in three syndicates after a short theoretical refresher course.

During a complex patrol practice, the personnel learned, in a realistic environment, how to deal with real-life situations that were conceived and planned by the trainers of the HDF PSTC. Finally, the attendees completed the course by giving presentations on freely chosen, UNFICYP-related topics to develop their presentation skills.