Stoltenberg and Blinken call for dialogue between Greece and Turkey
Greece and Turkey should engage in dialogue to defuse the tension between them, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Friday.
“Turkey and Greece are two highly valued Allies. They participate and contribute to NATO in many different ways. Any differences between them, of course, should be solved by diplomatic means. We have also at NATO established what we call a deconfliction mechanism where Turkey and Greece can engage, and have used this previously to provide information, to provide ways to deconflict any dangerous situation or behavior in, for instance, the Aegean Sea,” Stoltenberg told a press conference at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels, in response to a question about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent rhetoric regarding Greece.
On Tuesday Erdogan reiterated a thinly veiled invasion threat made over the weekend. Athens responded that it’s ready to defend its sovereignty.
For his part, Anthony Blinken reminded that Athens and Ankara are two important allies of Washington and called on both sides to engage in a “constructive way through dialogue.”
“They’ve done so in the past and we would expect them to do so going forward,” he said.
The “fundamental challenge” posed by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is “a challenge that matters to every single ally and many countries well beyond the Alliance, well beyond the transatlantic area. And so we should be making sure that we’re focusing all of our attention and our resources as necessary in supporting Ukraine and pushing back against Russia’s aggression,” said Blinken.
