The President of Greece’s major opposition party New Democracy (ND), Kyriakos Mitsotakis blasted the Greek government and PM Alexis Tsipras over the handling of the bilateral relations with Turkey, following the recent escalation in the Aegean Sea and the Imia incident on Monday.

Addressing his party group in parliament, Mr Mitsotakis stressed that there had been a record number of sea and air violations from Turkey in 2017 over the past 15 years, while he wondered what the Greek PM had told his Turkish counterpart during their phone contact yesterday on the Imia incident.

He sent a clear message to Turkey stressing that there were no grey zones or disputed areas in the Aegean Sea, saying that Imia were sovereign Greek territory.

He underlined that “Greece’s message must be clear. There are no grey zones in the Aegean. Imia is Greek. The sovereign rights of the country are non-negotiable”.

Adopting harsh rhetoric against Mr Tsipras and his government regarding their foreign policy tactics, he dubbed SYRIZA and ANEL as divisive, accusing government officials of labeling the Greek people who took part in the two rallies for Macedonia as supporters of the extreme right.