Greek PM to Turkish Prez: “This rhetoric can lead us nowhere”

A new message – for the umpteenth time in recent days – was sent by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to Recep Tayyip Erdogan amid an escalation of Turkish provocations.

Speaking at the “ygeiamou conference”, Mr. Mitsotakis described as an unpleasant development the escalation of the tension through the fault of Turkey, emphasizing that he had the impression “after my meeting with President Erdogan that no actions will be taken that will directly provoke the other side.”

As he said, unfortunately Turkey did not fulfill this commitment.

Toxic verbiage

Mr. Mitsotakis spoke about a barrage of violations over Greek islands, saying that this rhetoric can not lead us anywhere.

“The government raised the Turkish provocation in the international forums and the support came without asterisks from our partners. I hope and hope and openly encourage Turkey that this rhetoric is not expressed in the field. We are far from the intensity of the summer of 2020 and we need restraint from everyone. There is no need for additional hotbeds of unrest within the alliance.”

According to the PM, Turkey’s rhetoric goes beyond the limits and becomes quaint.

It is worth noting that in recent days, after the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington, Erdogan has engaged in an unprecedented, perhaps beyond the limits of insult, personal attack on Mr. Mitsotakis, accusing him of violating the “agreement” not to involve third parties in Greek-Turkish relations.

The term set to Erdogan

According to “Vima” newspaper, Mr. Mitsotakis set a condition to his Turkish interlocutor, which he seems to have ignored.

The Prime Minister clarified that if the rhetoric about Greek “conditional sovereignty” continues in the Eastern Aegean and Dodecanese islands, as well as overflights, then it will probably be impossible for there to be positive developments in Greek-Turkish, such as a “positive agenda” in discussions, political consultations of the secretaries general of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, let alone a convening of the Supreme Cooperation Council that was never explicitly agreed but existed as a scenario.

Erdogan and his close associates, including Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, appear to have ignored the prime minister’s condition. Besides, Akar never stopped the “aggressive” statements even after the meeting of the two leaders, while the barrage of overflights (42 in one day, on April 27, over inhabited islands such as Rhodes, Samos, Kos, Leros, Symi, Halki, and Kastellorizo, while even last Friday overflights were recorded by Turkish UAVs) could not be accepted, as well as the entry of Turkish fighter jets at a distance of 2.5 nautical miles from Alexandroupolis.

The Prime Minister’s references to all the above, but also to the case of the F-16 concession to Turkey during his meetings in the White House and in the Congress, were deemed unacceptable by the Turkish leadership, resulting in a new wave of statements.