The United States will provide $690 million (242 billion HUF) for democracy-promoting programs around the world at the second Democracy Summit organized by the US government on Wednesday, it was announced in Washington on the opening day of the event.
In the opening joint statement to the virtual meeting, President Joe Biden and South Korean President Jon Sokgol emphasized that promoting transparent and accountable governance with the consent of the governed is a fundamental imperative of our time, MTI writes. According to the document, since the first meeting in December 2021, the governments participating in the conference have made hundreds of commitments to change their laws and policies in order to achieve this goal.
The conference is attended by 120 global political leaders, and is organized by South Korea, Costa Rica, Zambia and the Netherlands.
Late morning local time, President Joe Biden will speak at the virtual session of the summit, which will be attended by Slovakian President Zuzana Shaputova, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, and Moldovan President Maja Sandu, among others. Early in the American morning, the German Chancellor, the British Prime Minister, the French President, the Dutch Prime Minister, and the Indian Prime Minister also spoke.
Israel, represented by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was invited to the event. According to the White House, the US-Israeli political tension that has arisen in recent days has not affected the invitation. Benjamin Netanyahu and President Joe Biden made sharply opposing statements on Israeli judicial reform on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, a White House National Security Council spokesperson responded at a news conference when asked why the United States did not send invitations to two NATO member states, Turkey and Hungary, by saying that the United States is committed to developing and strengthening relations. with Türkiye and Hungary. John Kirby confirmed that they are allies in NATO and cooperate with them on many issues. He pointed out that compared to the first conference, more countries were invited to the event this year, which showed political will to advance the goals of the summit.
According to the Hungarian government’s letter, they were not invited because Trump’s friends, US Ambassador David Pressman, said on Thursday that the Hungarian government has been avoiding parliament for the past 2,547 days due to various emergencies.
Earlier, US government officials stated that the aim of the conference is to ensure that “technology works for democracy, not against it.” It was announced that the United States had tentatively agreed with ten countries the principles according to which governments would use covert surveillance and data collection techniques.
