A “bombshell” was thrown by Panos Kammenos on Tuesday morning on the FYROM agreement issue.
The agreement, he stated, “will not pass without the approval of the Greek people. And this is done in two ways either by elections or by referendum. I assume responsibility for this as president of ANEL … Unless it comes to the Parliament with 180 MPs”.
As he also said, “the draft agreement has no weight and commitment until its ratification by the Parliament. All other conditions of the agreement are conditions that FYROM must fulfill”.
According to Panos Kammenos, “even this ratification in Skopje is not valid since it does not bear the signature of their president” referring to the return of the agreement that Georgi Ivanov made after his vote by the Macedonian parliament.
According to the Defense Minister at the NATO Summit on 11 and 12 July, any invitation to FYROM will be under the commitments that all planned steps will be taken by the neighboring country and the agreement will be ratified by the Greek Parliament.
“There is no future for FYROM in NATO unless the agreement is ratified and I will make sure that the agreement is not ratified”, he said.
As the government stressed, the government is a coalition government and the positions of ANEL and SYRIZA are clear. “The expectations that Zaev seeks to pass to his people are his own problem … The deal is bad, I do not accept it and will try to block it”, said Panos Kammenos.
As he added, “if the agreement comes with 151 MPs, he will go to the President of the Republic and will withdraw from the government”.
Albanian
The issue of the EEZ is closing with both Albania and other countries, the Minister of Defense said, adding that these issues will be announced in time by the Foreign Ministry.
As he pointed out, what Greece was asking from Albania to do, they have begun to do them. For example, the Greek WWII military cemeteries. “Albania is beginning to realize that it is in its best interest to have good relations with Greece”.
Regarding Northern Epirus, he said: “Northern Epirus is the area that the Greeks existed and will exist. The minority will be protected. What is being said about property claims is not related to the Tsams. The Tsams are war criminals who collaborated with the Nazis, and we do not talk to war criminals”.
