Government to introduce new strategy against terrorism, violent extremism

The Greek governemnt will present in three months a national strategy to fight terrorism and violent extremism, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Monday, speaking at an event in Athens to honor of victims of terrorism in Greece.

He said the strategy will fill a policy gap "which has for years cast a shadow on Greece's image" in the way it is seen by international organizations.

As part of the strategy, the Citizen Protection Ministry will open a Department of Prevention of Violence, while a public campaign to deconstruct violent ideologies is also in the cards.

He also pointed to the government's counter-criminal policy saying Greek police is being boosted with new staff and resources. 

Mitsotakis said the 1989 assassination of politician Pavlos Bakoyannis by the now-defunct November 17 terrorist organization "marked everyone in his family," and expressed bitterness that "it took too many years and victims until the guilty were held accountable."

The late Bakoyannis was the husband of Kyriakos Mitsotakis' older sister and former foreign minister Dora Bakoyannis and father of Athens' current mayor Kostas Bakoyannis.

Mitsotakis pointed out that his participation in this specific event comes "from his sense of duty" as an elected prime minister who "has to protect democratic life and guarantee the rule of law."

17N carried out a decades-long assassination campaign starting in 1975, targeting 23 people over a period of almost three decades, including politicians, businessmen, industrialists, publishers, as well as American, Turkish and British diplomats and officials.

Its members were arrested in 2003 and convicted the following year.