Defence Min. Panagiotopoulos | “Greece does occasionally show its teeth”

Defence Redefined

Published on 03/06/2020 at 16:53

Defence Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos said that Greece has clearly and categorically identified its “red lines” in the event that Turkey’s aggressive behaviour intensifies, while speaking in parliament on Wednesday.

“Greece does not simply look on. At times, it also shows its teeth. And it showed its teeth through the way we reacted to Turkey’s organised attempt to violate our borders in Evros and this is the way we will deal with the remaining issues”, Panagiotopoulos said.

He clarified that the government has done this through other actions also, adding that “there is no need for me to expand on this further and I am not, in any case, exclusively responsible, for me to do so” .

Earlier, opposition Movement for Change (KINAL) MP and party secretary Vassilis Kegeroglou referred to the tension in Greek-Turkish relations.

“Greece, without exception, has over the last period been observing Turkey, which has moved on to the next stage after that of provocativeness and creating grey zones. We are going through a period of aggressiveness and its escalation, which apparently aims at the creation of an incident, if not a more general clash,” Kegeroglou said.

“We fully support the foreign ministry’s actions that are currently in progress but we want to underline that they are not enough because there is no national strategy and specifically no national proposal that will get us from a simple reaction stage to the stage of executing our plans. Our plans are in accordance with international law and the national proposal on the delimitation of maritime zones,” the KINAL MP said.

Source: ANA MPA