Kotzias stresses need to maintain communication with Ankara to avoid ‘accident’
Responding to a series of inflammatory comments by Turkish government officials about sovereignty in the Aegean, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias on Friday underlined the need to keep "open all channels of communication" with Ankara to ensure that "there is no accident or tense incident."
"For a year-and-a-half now, our neighbors are very nervous," Kotzias said in an interview with Alpha FM. But they must understand, he said, "the need for good neighborly relations, on the basis of international and European law." He added that Turkey should not project its domestic crisis outward.
Noting that current tensions in the Aegean are "not the greatest ever," Kotzias said the Turks should realize that "we are the best neighbors they could have." A few months ago, he added, Ankara had fallen out wit the Russians, Syria and Iraq.