Austria is not neutral towards the breach of international law, said Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen in his New Year’s speech to the diplomatic corps in the Hofburg.
Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen has once more condemned the Russian war of aggression once morest Ukraine “in the strongest possible terms” and stressed that Austria’s stance was “by no means neutral”. Austria is militarily neutral, but: “We are not neutral towards the blatant breach of international law and towards war crimes,” said Van der Bellen in his New Year’s speech to the diplomatic corps on Tuesday in the Hofburg.
“Neutrality is not indifference,” said Van der Bellen. In the past two years, the traditional reception has taken place online due to the corona pandemic. This year, a hundred ambassadors came to the official residence of the re-elected Federal President. Diplomats from Russia, Belarus and Iran were not invited this time. “We are not neutral towards a country’s struggle to defend its sovereignty and independence and for its freedom.”
Van der Bellen complains regarding massive attacks on human rights
The “brutal war of aggression” has consequences that “go far beyond Ukraine and Europe,” emphasized Van der Bellen, referring to the scarcity of food and energy sources and the resulting high inflation rates. The Federal President called for “reducing and diversifying dependencies”, which applies in Austria above all to the energy sector. “The fight once morest the climate catastrophe was and remains one of my political priorities,” he said, calling it the “greatest global challenge” that can only be solved “together, as an international community of states”.
In his speech, Van der Bellen also referred to “particularly severe and massive attacks on human rights” in Iran and Afghanistan, for example. In the “special year 2023, as we mark the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we must not look the other way”. And: On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Vienna Human Rights Conference, which made a decisive contribution to the creation of the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Austria will hold an expert conference in June. The Austrian Volker Türk has held the post of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights since last year.
Van der Bellen also assured that following the “tragic” earthquake in Turkey and Syria, Austria would continue to do its “best possible” to “provide humanitarian aid”.
(WHAT)