Hungarian official suspended over Israeli military exercise

Wed, 24 Mar 2010

Budapest - The head of the air transport division of Hungary's National Transport Authority has been suspended over an Israeli military exercise in Hungarian airspace, Transport Minister Peter Honig said on Wednesday.

A further four members of staff are to be disciplined over the authority's failure to consult secret services before issuing a permit for Israeli military aircraft to enter Hungarian airspace on March 17.

At a hastily called session of a parliamentary defense committee on Tuesday, Defense Minister Imre Szekeres insisted that his ministry had been aware in advance of the Israeli military exercise.

A delegate from the center-right opposition party Fidesz accused the government of not treating the matter seriously enough.

The right-wing newspaper Magyar Nemzet reported on March 18 that two Israeli military aircraft had carried out what appeared to be a reconnaissance mission, flying low over Budapest international airport.

The report sparked a row over the apparent breakdown of communications between airspace controllers and Hungary's military and secret services, who had apparently not been informed of the flights.

Committee member Zoltan Gal of the governing Socialist Party told the committee that the "hysteria" surrounding the incident would not have arisen had the aircraft not been Israeli.

In the wake of the media reports of the flights last week, Israel's ambassador to Hungary Aliza Bin-Noun denied that the aircraft had been spy planes and described the exercise as "routine".

The defense minister noted that around 500 authorizations for "state-military" type flights are issued in Hungary every year.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/315623,hungarian-official-suspended-over-israeli-military-exercise.html.