In the history of Greek-Turkish relations, there has never been a period like the one we are experiencing, “with 3.5 years of continuous crisis and even escalation of the crisis,” stressed Foreign Secretary Nikos Dendiasduring his speech at the New Democracy Phocis Constituency Standing Committee event, for cutting the New Year’s cake in Amfissa.

He recalled that relations with Turkey have always been difficult, with repeated crises, which, however, “were limited in time.”

The big difference between these three and a half years is the duration of the crisis,” he said, and “every day is worse than the previous one, what was said today is worse than what was said yesterday.” We have never experienced this before.”

“It required constant activity in order to be able to create a front to stop the perception of revisionism, that is, to change the border conditions, the conditions that Turkey tried to impose through intimidation, and I want to tell you that I am proud because I think that we succeeded “, he said and added:

“It will be a great honor for us when we hand over, hand over Greek territory more than we received it, and this is a huge pride.”

According to him, the government pursued a policy of open horizons. “We did not stop at the Aegean and the Balkans, as is usually the case. We have expanded our presence.”

Politics 6 Intersecting Circles

“We had a policy, I call it a policy of 6 overlapping circles: Europe, from there and beyond our wider region – Israel, Egypt, the Arab world, North Africa, the Balkans. Behind them is the rest of Africa. Greece has never in its history dealt with Africa.”

After all, tomorrow he is going to South Africa, where “the Greek minister must go for 25 years. And yet in South Africa we have, in addition to being the biggest economic power on the African continent, we have a huge and powerful diaspora that we don’t seem to remember very well.”

He will then go to Mozambique, which is the next Security Council President, just as Cambon (where he was last week) was the previous Security Council President and Ghana (where he was the day before) was the previous one. .

“You understand when she has a crisis with Turkey, how important the UN Security Council is. We cannot ignore things. We cannot shut ourselves in the microcosm,” said Mr. Dendias.

The Foreign Minister emphasized that Greece’s relations with the US are “better than ever”: “Konstantinos Karamanlis fought to keep 7 against 10. 10 Turkish guns and 7 us. If you know arithmetic, now you can easily calculate what the ratio is: it is 10:0,” he stressed.

“Let’s, so to speak, assume that Turkey succeeds and convinces the United States to modernize the F-16,” he said characteristically. “When Turkey receives the first upgraded F-16, Greece will have 83 F-16 Viper level, level 70, 24 Rafale, which are 4.5 generation fighters, and will receive the first F-35.”

“We are not afraid of them, pure conversation,” he remarked characteristically. “The fact that we react differently to insults, slander, threats is due to our culture and the fact that we believe in a modern European democratic progressive country. That’s who we are. We will not arrange cockfights and fights.

He also referred to the song “I will come one night” that the Turkish president used to threaten Greece, which he recalled was a song about the invasion that the Turks sang in 1963, about the invasion that took place in Cyprus years later. .

“We hear them, we notice them, we understand them. We are ready. But know that this does not mean that we will follow the same language and the same example. We are something else,” he said.

Our gospel is international law, independence, territorial integrity, equality of rights, equality of states.

Speaking of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Dendias once again defended Greece’s clear position. As he noted, he himself had been persistently trying for three years to restore relations between Greece and Russia. “But everything has a limit, everything has a limit,” he pointed out. “We have a clear choice in foreign policy. And our choice, our gospel is international law, independence, territorial integrity, equality, equality of states. That is the charter of the United Nations.”

“There was no choice here,” he said. “If we accept through the invasion of a large country into a smaller country, whether it was right, whether something was said right, regardless of all this, the moment a big country, any country, invades another country, any right whatever right he had, it disappeared […] Everything becomes white-black, good-bad,” he stressed. “The example of Russia, if projected onto our neighborhood, is just Turkish revisionism. I try to change borders by force. No. A hundred times not. This is not done this way. So we didn’t have the slightest choice.”

He also said that he himself was proud that “in 3.5 years we managed to achieve national unity in a broad framework” in foreign policy issues and that the main elections are not disputed: agreements with Italy, with Egypt, historical agreements, a defense treaty with the United States , his 2nd amendment, defense treaty with France.

He also noted that Greece has a long relationship with France, and the Mitsotakis government is not the first to buy weapons from France. However, “the Greek government convinced the French Republic for the first time to sign a bilateral defense agreement. France has a bilateral defense agreement with only one other country in the world: with Germany, for historical reasons, she signed it after the Second World War. We are the only ones.”

Defense agreement with the United Arab Emirates

He also recalled the defense agreement with the United Arab Emirates, the largest military power in the Persian Gulf. He also noted that when we had a crisis with the Orouts Race in 2020, Emirati F-16s arrived and stationed in Chania with weapons.

Regarding the work of the government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he noted that he “signed most of the agreements ever signed by the Hellenic Republic or the Greek state since its inception.”

“All this to create this foundation that will allow the country to be secure, stable, to be able to allow your citizens, you, to create and ultimately live happily with a better future for your children.” He pointed out that now is the time for the Greek people to measure and choose, and stressed: “These are turbulent times. Especially after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, our world is not the same as we knew it, it is not the same.”

“We honestly make our own proposal. We tell them that a ship cannot have many captains in a storm. And you can’t talk and talk during a storm, let the ship go and who will hold the helm,” he said and concluded: “In our opinion, there is a good captain, he proved it. There’s a good team and a good course for the boat.”