Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called Turkey’s stance “extremely provocative” while dubbing the memorandum with Libya invalid.
In an interview with Stanford University history professor Neil Ferguson in the framework of the Delphi Economic Forum, Mr Mitsotakis stressed that “if one looks at the map, one will understand that Turkey’s illegal agreement with Libya makes no sense.”
“Our relationship with Turkey is difficult and Turkey has been extremely provocative in its activities in recent months, especially with the signing of the agreement with Libya on the delimitation of maritime zones, which we consider completely invalid, without any effect.”
The Prime Minister noted that the EEZ agreement with Italy is the model for resolving international disputes.
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“We as Greece have signed a similar agreement, which respects international law and the law of the sea … This is the way we approach the problems in our neighbourhood and this is the way we expect others to deal with issues. And not with unilateral moves,” he said.
“As far as our relationship with Turkey is concerned, this is not a Greek-Turkish problem, it is an EU-Turkey problem. Greece is a member of the European Union, our security issues are also EU issues. When we guard and protect our borders, we are defending the borders of the European Union.”
Commenting on the economic impact of the coronavirus in Greece and the effective way Greece managed to overcome the pandemic in terms of fatalities the PM said: “As for the economic impact, I think those who argued against lockdowns, because they wanted to continue economic activity, were wrong. I think that the countries that have performed well in reducing the epidemic, at least in the first phase, are the ones that will emerge stronger as we enter the recovery phase.”
The Prime Minister said that our economy is slowly opening up, adding that the return to normalcy was successful and pointed out that even during the most difficult weeks of the pandemic, the National Health System managed to cope.
