A quip by former Greek PM Alexis Tsipras that there are no sea borders in the Aegean, an ill-advised and off-the-cuff response to a press question over his government’s shambolic response to refugee/migrant crisis generated an avalanche of criticism by political rivals this week.
Tsipras was apparently trying to point out that the waves of refugees and would-be immigrants, some from as far as …Bangladesh, could not be deterred from landing on various Greek isles off the Turkish coast.
Yet, when taken out of context, it echoed official Turkey’s “exceptionalist” policy of disputing international law and treaties defining maritime borders in the Aegean.
“He can’t be so inept,” was the response by the centrist Potami party.
Tsipras’ answer came in Thessaloniki during a press conference over the weekend, when asked by Spiegel about his seven-month government’s actions and reaction to the waves of third country nationals sneaking into Greece, a phenomenon that accelerated after his government was elected.
Beyond the diplomatic “snafu”, Tsipras blamed the previous conservative government for leaving him with the problem.
“…We found an issue that some say has global dimensions; it deals with Greece but is also European; it’s global, and instead of looking to explain what they did, when they saw waves of refugees coming, they criticized us for supposedly opening the borders. What borders? Does the sea have borders we didn’t know about?