FM warns against a lose-lose situation [Update]
Germany will have to decide whether it wants to support Greece or make an example of the SYRIZA-led administration, Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias said on Friday.
“Do they want to support us to have growth… or do they decide to have Greece struggle, to punish Greece and to create an example of what happens to a country that has a left government?” Kotzias told Reuters at the close of a four-day visit to the US.
In the same interview, Kotzias said Greece and its lenders needed to hammer out a deal that will spur growth in the debt-wracked nation, adding that the alternatives would lead to a lose-lose situation.
“So you are not giving a solution to Greece, you press the Greek government? What can be the solution? Golden Dawn is coming. Nobody has an interest in that, so that is what they will find a solution,” he said.
Meanwhile, speaking after a meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the organization’s headquarters in New York, the Greek foreign minister accused Turkey of being an obstacle to a peace settlement on Cyprus.
“If Turkey wants a swift solution [to the Cyprus problem], the only thing they need to do is to quickly leave the island,” Kotzias said.
He was speaking after comments by his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, who said that Ankara wants a solution by the end of 2015.
During the meeting, Ban and Kotzias also exchanged views on the name dispute between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean immigration crisis.
