Strategic and Operational Assessment of UN Peacekeeping Missions
Szöveg: Defence Staff | 2015. március 28. 10:02Between March 23 and 28, Gen. Dr. Tibor Benkő, the Chief of the Defence Staff is paying an official visit to the United States, where he attends a conference to be held in New York for chiefs of defence from the member states engaged in UN peacekeeping activities.
During the visit, Gen. Tibor Benkő paid a call to the NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT) in Norfolk, where he met Hungarian soldiers serving there. The Hungarian soldiers working in the office of the HDF National Liaison Representative briefed the Chief of Defence about their duties, the short-term and long-term concepts of the ACT, and the current system of training and exercises.
On the third day of the visit, Gen. Benkő paid a call to the National Guard Bureau in Washington, where he was received by Lt.-Gen. Joseph L. Lengyel, Vice-Chief, National Guard Bureau of the United States of America. The significance of the meeting was that the Hungarian Defence Forces have a 20-year partnership with the Ohio National Guard (ONG) in the fields of training and preparation, and Hungarian and American troops have already been co-deployed in the theatre of operations in Afghanistan.
The participants of the meeting reaffirmed that, when complemented by the partnership with Serbia, the already existing good cooperation between the two organizations can effectively serve stability and security in the region. Besides assessing and analyzing the situation in Ukraine, they discussed the present and future role of the Hungarian Defence Forces in foreign missions and the opportunities for cooperation with the Ohio National Guard. In conclusion, they stated that the regional interests of the ONG are in line with Hungary’s interests, so based on the positive achievements and relations established so far, their joint action can produce significant results.
In what followed, the Chief of Defence was received by Dr. Réka Szemerkényi, Hungary’s ambassador to Washington. At the meeting, they discussed the most important issues in Hungarian–American operational cooperation. Another item on the agenda was an outstanding field of defence cooperation, the strengthening of special operations forces (SOF) capability, the development of which is considered by Hungary and the United States a cornerstone of bilateral defence cooperation.
Photo: Defence Staff
