Greek PM calls on Ankara to dial down tension
The only way for an effective rapprochement with Ankara to take place would be for Turkey to cease all provocative and illegal activities and to dial down the aggressive rhetoric, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Friday.
“This is the climate that will lead to a discussion on the issue of maritime zones,” the prime minister said in comments to the press following a meeting at his office in the Maximos Mansion with European Council President Charles Michel.
“I underscored our country’s decisive contribution to stability in an area that it vital to the Union’s interests overall,” he said, adding that EU support for Greece and Cyprus is not only “a self-evident expression of European solidarity, but an explicit recognition that the EU’s strategic and geopolitical interests are being challenged in this area.”
Mitsotakis’ comments come ahead of a planned visit to Greece by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu amid sputtering efforts to get the two sides at the same table for talks on the way forward.
