Mitsotakis’ prayer

No issue was resolved during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Athens, but a new beginning was made. Many people wonder how long it will last, due to past history with Turkey, but it was a good step forward. The Athens Declaration may not be binding, but it exists and we can invoke it everywhere, if the Turkish president turns things around. The main thing is that a sense of relief was created in the two peoples on either side of the Aegean, which is extremely valuable in an age when we only hear about wars and bloodshed.

“So what?” the impatient will ask. “This is important,” we’ll answer. In international relations, nothing happens automatically, even if this is the impression that those of us who like to read history sometimes think. History moves slowly, despite the impression created by books, which present a succession of milestones without us realizing all the excruciating intervening events.

So were all those who declared with plenty of bluster that “you do not pursue a dialogue with the pirate” wrong? As long as he continues to behave like a pirate, there is no ‘positive agenda’… if you try to soothe them, this is called ‘appeasement,’” as I have repeatedly said, and as, correctly, Kostas Karamanlis underlined a few weeks ago. And appeasement has always been very dangerous. Do you think two former prime ministers and two former New Democracy leaders can be so wrong?” former conservative prime minister Antonis Samaras told Kathimerini in an interview published on November 25.

In the first 10 months of 2022, Greece’s Air Force made 2,296 interceptions at a cost of 23 million euros, versus 47 interceptions in 2023 that cost 500,000 euros

It turned out that even Samaras can be wrong.

We may wish for it, but we cannot operate under the scenario that we will maintain lasting calm with Turkey. There are differences and imperial fantasies. But even if the moratorium lasts another year, it will be a great financial breather for the two peoples. As Kathimerini’s diplomatic and defence correspondent Vassilis Nedos calculated, in the first 10 months of 2022, Greece’s Air Force made 2,296 interceptions at a cost of 23 million euros. As soon as things started to settle, in the corresponding 10 months of 2023 there were 47 interceptions at a cost of 500,000 euros. We don’t have 22.5 million euros to waste, not to mention the fatigue of the Air Force staff, but also of the public, that keeps paying for games of dominance in the Aegean. It seems Mitsotakis is following the prayer of the American Reformed theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: “O God, grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed, courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other.”

May others understand it too.