PM: Greece doesn’t want Turkey isolated

It is not in Greece’s interest to have a Turkey that is completely isolated and all discussions to that effect in the media are “not an accurate analysis,” according to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. 

In a wide-ranging interview with Skai TV, Mitsotakis referred to the meeting he had with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul earlier this year which has been referred to many times by the Turkish leader, claiming the Greek PM did not keep his word regarding what was agreed. 

Mitsotakis said that he told Erdogan he would “not accept overflights over the Greek islands, nor the argument that links Greek sovereignty over the east Aegean islands with their alleged militarization.”

“If Mr Erdogan did not understand what I told him, I am not responsible for that,” he said. 

Erdogan has also repeatedly slammed Mitsotakis over the speech he gave to the US Congress when he berated Turkey’s aggressive stance.

Mitsotakis said he will continue to raise the issue.

“I gave a speech which had very little reference to the issues of the Eastern Mediterranean, but these issues were obviously raised at the bilateral level. I raised them and I will continue to raise them, as I raise them at the level of the European Union,” he said 

Regarding the sale of weapons systems from the US to Turkey, he noted that Greece cannot block it indefinitely. 

What Greece has succeeded in doing, he stressed, is to explain to the US Congress, in particular, that the “sale of weapons systems to a NATO member country which is currently a source of instability in the southeastern flank of NATO and which openly challenges the sovereignty of another NATO member country is not in the interest of the United States itself.”