Greece will not escalate rhetoric, says alternate foreign minister

Greece’s Alternate Foreign Minister Giorgos Katrougalos has criticized Turkish airspace violations in the Aegean Sea, while condemning the seizure of ethnic Greek minority properties in southern Albania.

Speaking after a meeting of the National Council for Foreign Affairs (ESEP) on Friday during which he briefed Greek party representatives on latest regional developments, Katrougalos said Greece would not seek to imitate Turkey’s escalating rhetoric and provocation.

“It is [Turkey] that needs rhetorical outbursts and vacuous provocations,” said Katrougalos, attributing Ankara’s policy to a revisionist attitude towards international law.

He also criticized a recent decision by Albanian authorities to confiscate property belonging to ethnic Greek families in the south of the country for tourism development, saying it was against European law.

Greece, he said, supports Albania’s European Union membership ambitions on the condition that the country respects the bloc’s acquis communautaire.