The United Nations has a more important role to play today than ever since the second world war, the prime minister’s chief of staff said on Monday, marking United Nations Day. “It has not happened since WWII that a nuclear power would start a war in Europe,” Gergely Gulyás told a commemorative event held at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In this “unprecedented” situation, the importance of diplomacy is greater than ever before, Gulyás said. By offering a platform for speeches and debates, the UN serves as an institution that “has probably the most important diplomatic tools available for mankind”, he said at the event organised in partnership with the UN Association in Hungary and the University of Public Service. “Mankind faces difficult years to come”, Gulyás said, adding that “the UN is greatly needed to end the ongoing war as soon as possible”. He said that the world owed a lot to the United Nations which helped it become a more liveable place.
Addressing the event, Zsolt Németh, the head of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said “the Russian aggression against Ukraine has brought about one of the most difficult situations since the foundation of the United Nations”. Russia, a major pillar of “the UN world order”, has attacked its sovereign neighbour, Németh said. “The set of values laid down by the UN is no fiction, but an international agreement written down clearly in a document,” he said, adding that Russia “has grossly violated” that agreement. United Nations Day marks the anniversary of the UN Charter’s entering into force on this day in 1945.