Turkey only stands to lose by raising tension, says Tsipras
The migration crisis can only be dealt with effectively through cooperation and not tension, opposition SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras said on Thursday during a tour of Thrace in northeastern Greece, referring to comments made earlier by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkey’s leadership must understand that it is useless to count on escalating tension, he said. “It stands to lose, not gain anything by this tension,” Tsipras said after Erdogan indicated that “Greece will suffer” if Turkey opens its borders to thousands of migrants and refugees.
“It stands to gain nothing from using human pain for political reasons, as we saw from the Erdogan government in March 2020 at Evros,” Tsipras added, referring to a migrant push at the Greek-Turkish border last year.
Speaking at the Komotini Concert Hall, where he lashed out at the government and against “the complete failure of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in almost everything that he promised,” Tsipras said.
Greece, he said, is “caught in the vise of the pandemic and rising prices, but also in a vise by Mitsotakis” who is “handling the pandemic in a way that creates more problems rather than providing solutions.” [AMNA]
