Athens says no exchange of soldiers for justice verdicts
Alternate Defense Minister Fotis Kouvelis said Turkey’s holding in custody of two Greek soldiers since March 1 is “unacceptable”, adding that they cannot possibly be “traded” with Greek justice decisions.
In an interview published on Saturday at Ethnos newspaper, Kouvelis said that “having a firm position that the unacceptable holding of our two military officials is neither offset or traded with the decisions of the independent Greek justice, we seek their return to Greece.”
He went on to add that “Greece is a country of peace and this is what it wants to be promoted in the region,” but also “at the same time it can with sufficiency and preventive force protect its sovereign national rights.”
In another interview in the same newspaper, government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said that “the Greek government is applying political and diplomatic pressure for the quickest possible settlement of the issue” of the two military officers held in Edirne.
