Satisfaction and realism about Erdogan
The message coming out of Athens after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said via Kathimerini on Thursday that he wants good relations with Greece was that Athens’ intentions after the elections to hold discussions with Ankara and any president of Turkey remain sincere, without, however, cultivating naive expectations that Turkey’s foreign policy will change in the long run.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who during the debate a few days earlier noted that “Turkish revisionism, as expressed by the ‘Blue Homeland’ doctrine, is deeply systemically registered in the DNA of all Turkish parties,” appeared pragmatic when referring to Greek-Turkish relations in an interview with The Associated Press. More specifically, he noted that the foreign policy of countries “does not change from one day to the next.”
“I would hope that the next Turkish government would overall reconsider its approach toward the West, not just toward Greece, toward Europe, toward NATO, and toward the United States,” Mitsotakis said. “But again, I have to be a realist and not be too naive, and that is why we will continue with… our firm foreign policy. That means we will continue to strengthen our deterrence capabilities and our defense capabilities,” he said, noting constant Turkish threats to invade the Greek islands.
“I wish I did not have to spend much more than 2% of GDP on defense. But unfortunately, we live in a precarious neighborhood with… a much larger country than us that’s also been behaving aggressively,” Mitsotakis said of the arms issue.
Regarding everything that followed after the devastating earthquakes of February 6, he noted that “it is a pity. We don’t have to wait for a catastrophe to strike, nor are we destined to live in a state of permanent tension.”
He also that he will not apologize for the reversal of SYRIZA’s open-door policy that allowed 1 million migrants and refugees to cross the border in 2015.
