Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Saturday referred to the current state of relations with neighboring Turkey, during a live appearance on a morning current affairs TV program, while at the same time directly responding to internal grumbling from within his own ruling New Democracy (ND) party.
Mitsotakis responded to various questions in a wide-ranging live television interview.
He first expressed a view that Greece today is in a stronger position than in 2019, when his center-right party returned to power in a landslide victory to replace the leftist SYRIZA government.
“We stopped an organized incursion of migrants in Evros (prefecture),” he said, referring to an attempt by thousands of third country nationals to breach Greece’s border from Turkey in February and March 2020 along a stretch of the land border shared by the two countries that isn’t divided by the Evros (Maritsa) River.
Athens and other EU countries at the time squarely blamed the Erdogan government in Ankara for giving the “green light” to third country nationals living in Turkey to attempt to illegally enter Greece, in a bid to reach preferred destinations in central and western Europe.
“Greece is geopolitically, defensively and economically stronger, and we have an obligation, with confidence and not from a position of weakness, to talk to our neighbors. Those who are concerned about dialogue with our neighbors should provide an alternative. Do we prefer calm or troubled waters? Have we retreated even slightly from our standing positions? I don’t see this anywhere. It is my duty to tell my neighbor (Turkey) that revisionism does not lead to a solution. Relations between the two peoples are good,” he said, adding:
“We recently heard in Parliament that we’re at war. These are unacceptable positions. Was there any compromise in our national policy in order to achieve this good relationship with Turkey? We see no violations in the Aegean, we have better cooperation with Turkey. If we agree to disagree, and that we can’t solve the EEZ and continental shelf issues, this doesn’t mean that we should be on the brink of war,” he emphasized.
Asked directly over high-profile statements, which bely veiled criticism of the government’s foreign policy, by former prime minister Antonis Samaras, one of Mitsotakis’ predecessors as ND party president, he said:
“I respect the views of the former prime minister, he has his own experience, he dealt with Greek-Turkish relations,” Mitsotakis said, recalling that as prime minister Samaras had also met with Turkish President Tayyip Recep Erdogan, with exploratory contacts held at the time.
“He (Samaras) is well aware that the responsibility of being in power obliges us to talk to Turkey,” he mentioned, while again turning to internal party critics by saying: “Everyone understands the responsibility we have to preserve unity and political stability.”
