On 5 October 2017, H.E.Mr.Tej Bunnag, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand, gave a lecture on "The Role of Thailand and H.R.H.Prince Wan Waithayakon in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution" at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Mr.Andras Balogh from ELTE University and former Ambassador of Hungary to Thailand was the discussant. On this occasion, the Embassy published a booklet "His Royal Highness Prince Wan Waithayakon : Thoughts on Diplomacy" for distribution.

Mr.Tej introduced Prince Wan, who was elected as the President of the 11th Session of the UNGA 1956-1957, as an outstanding and internationally recognized Thai diplomat. He was involved in multilateral diplomacy since Thailand was one of the founding members of the League of Nations. When the Hungarian Revolution broke out, he had to remain neutral as the UNGA President. However, the Thai Permanent Mission to the UN voiced Thailand's support in every possible session and the Thai Red Cross also sent assistance to the Hungarian people through the ICRC.

Eventually, the Prince was assigned by the UN to make a report on the situation in Hungary. Unfortunately, despite his firm intention to carry out his task, he could not fulfill it because the Hungarian socilaist government did not allow him to visit Hungary to investigate the fact. During this period, leaders of the Revolution were executed such as Imre Nagy and Pal Maleter.

Mr.Tej has the view that the Suez Crisis in which the UK and France invaded Egypt during the same period with the Hungarian Revolution weakened the argument to deplore the Soviet Union in sending troops to Hungary as the Soviet Union could always argue back that the UK and France did the same. 

The video of the lecture is available on Youtube Channel "Thai Embassy Budapest" or this link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNwik1QBIFo

Click this link to download the pdf file of the booklet "His Royal Highness Prince Wan Waithayakon : Thoughts on Diplomacy"  (37.95 MB)