Coalition partner Kammenos demands minister’s resignation

Defense Minister and Independent Greeks leader Panos Kammenos was expected to hold an emergency meeting of his nationalist party’s parliamentary group on Thursday morning after demanding the resignation of Migration Policy Minister Yiannis Mouzalas late Tuesday.

Kammenos made his demand after Mouzalas referred to Greece’s neighbor, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), simply as “Macedonia” in an interview with Skai TV.

Mouzalas apologized for his “gaffe” but Kammenos said that an apology would not suffice and called on Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to sack him.

Tsipras convened a meeting of ministers on Wednesday morning to discuss the issue.

Kammenos’s call for Mouzalas to be removed came shortly after New Democracy issued a statement suggesting that the minister should step down over his comment. Greece has been in dispute with FYROM over its name since the 1990s.