“We are fully aware of the difficulties in our bilateral relations with Turkey,” the Foreign Minister said. Nikos Dendias in an interview with Macedonia tis Kyriakis newspaper.

“We are closely following the developments, we hope for calm, remain committed to our firm position of honest and constructive dialogue to resolve our dispute within the framework of international law and international maritime law,” he said. .

“However, it should be equally clear that our national sovereignty is not in the slightest doubt and is not a subject of discussion,” he notes, and adds that the current climate should be preserved, and not sacrificed on the altar of pre-selective needs and expediency.

When asked about this, the Minister of Foreign Affairs said that we could make friends with Turkey, but “the relationship of friendship requires mutual respect and trust and is governed by the spirit of solidarity and understanding. I believe that we can develop harmonious and mutually beneficial relations of good neighborliness and interaction with Turkey. We practically demonstrated our friendly disposition.”

Referring to Turkey’s support of Greece for the post of a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for the period 2025-2026, he notes that this carries a special symbolism, since “the Security Council is the guardian, defender of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, to which our country attaches the greatest value”, while stating that he was optimistic that Greece’s candidacy would be widely accepted and successful.

Summing up the country’s foreign policy over the past four years, he points out that “Greece during this period grew up on the basis of international law and the law of the sea”, and recalls the agreements on the delimitation of the EEZ with Italy and Egypt, as well as the agreement with Albania on the transfer of the issue on the delimitation of the EEZ to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

“For the first time since 1947, the national territory has increased by increasing our territorial waters in the area of ​​the Ionian Sea and up to Cape Tainaro from 6 to 12 nautical miles,” he characteristically notes.