Turkey urged to respect treaties
President Prokopis Pavlopoulos said on Thursday in his Christmas message to the Greek diaspora that good relations with Turkey will depend on Ankara’s respect for Cyprus’s sovereignty and the Treaty of Lausanne, which forged modern Greece and Turkey’s borders.
During the visit this month to Greece by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the two men had an unusually blunt exchange about the treaty with a stern-looking Erdogan saying there were details in the treaty which required clarity.
Pavlopoulos also referred to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in his message, saying it must refrain from using names that distort history and promote irredentism.
