PM sends out strong message to Skopje
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ trip to the US for the NATO anniversary summit was dominated, if anything, by his strong messages to North Macedonia, both during his speech at the meeting and in the press conference that followed, where he took it one step further, leaving all possibilities open.
More specifically, when asked about Article 19 of the Prespa Agreement, which stipulates that in case of any violation of the agreement there can be an appeal to the UN secretary-general and then to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Mitsotakis did not rule anything out.
“Agreements must be respected and this is something I stressed in the NATO plenary. It is something that I think all our allies understand,” he said, adding that “we want North Macedonia to take steps toward European rapprochement, but this requires respect for international law and respect for the agreements that the country has signed, obviously.”
Mitsotakis concluded by saying that one way or another, the Skopje leadership will understand this.
“In any case, Greece will not reveal at this moment the weapons at its disposal to respond to a possible insistence of the leadership of the neighboring country on this tactic,” he noted.
On the Cyprus issue, on which he called for the resumption of talks, Mitsotakis said he had nothing to say about the rumors of a multilateral meeting on the issue in the near future.
“As I told you, I don’t even know the details of the content of [UN envoy] Ms [Maria Angela] Holguin’s report. What is imperative at this time is that talks between the two communities should begin,” he emphasized.
He also denounced as fake news the accusations by opposition parties in Greece that he had admitted in an interview to “gaps in the country’s national defense” due to sending aid to Ukraine.
“I never said that. I would like to take this opportunity to remind all those who spread such misinformation of two facts: The first is that Greece has surplus material to support Ukraine, always with the agreement of the General Staff of the National Defense Staff and the Ministry of National Defense, and I have said many, many times that in no way do the moves we are making call into question the country’s deterrent capability.”
