AKP spokesperson says Mitsotakis threatens peace and stability
Kyriakos Mitsotakis “is following an expansive and aggressive policy” and is “threatening the peace and stability of the region with his maximalist policy for the Eastern Mediterranean,” the spokesperson of Turkish ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Omer Celik, said on Friday, in a personal attack on the prime minister.
Celik made the claims in a serious of tweets, following an interview by Mitsotakis with US broadcaster CNN.
“We condemn the Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis for once again targeting our president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Mitsotakis’ statement that Turkey is ‘reviving neo-Ottoman revisionist fantasies’ is a phrase he uses to cover up his own illegal policies. Mitsotakis is following an expansive and aggressive policy. Mitsotakis is threatening the peace and stability of the region with his maximalist policy for the Eastern Mediterranean,” Celik said.
Referring to the Greek island of Kastellorizo, Celik said that “Mitsotakis defends the position that an island with an area of 10 square kilometers, which is 2 kilometers from Anatolia and 580 kilometers from the Greek mainland and has a continental shelf of 40,000 square kilometers.”
“This is an aggressive and expansionist policy. The claim that Kastelorizo has four thousand times more sea area than the island itself is contrary to international law. It is tragic that Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis, who makes such fanciful claims, targets our president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with the ‘expansionist’ claim.”
“The fact that the Mitsotakis government, which was struggling to pay even a few billion euros of the Greek debt, increased and quintupled his country’s budget for armaments, shows the whole world that Greece has no peaceful goals and is pursuing an aggressive policy in the Eastern Mediterranean,” the tweets continued.
“The Greek opposition draws attention to the fact that the country has turned into a military base for foreign countries. Our message to Mitsotakis is that he will not solve any of Greece’s problems by avoiding Turkish diplomacy and turning his country into a camp for third countries.”
