Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Friday commented directly on the previous day’s incendiary statements by no less than Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself, as the latter essentially disputed a 1923 international treaty establishing the modern Turkish republic and fixing its borders with neighboring countries, including Greece.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Friday commented directly on the previous day’s incendiary statements by no less than Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself, as the latter essentially disputed a 1923 international treaty establishing the modern Turkish republic and fixing its borders with neighboring countries, including Greece.
Speaking at a Cabinet-level council for foreign policy and defense, Tsipras was quoted as saying that Erdogan’s criticism of the Treaty of Lausanne’s provisions are a risk for both Greek-Turkish relations and for the region as a whole.
“Regardless of the true intentions of such statements disputing international legality, Greece will not follow this path … we will continue to support, with consistency and decisiveness, the role of Greece as an axis of in peace and stability in a fragile region,” Tsipras said.
The Erdogan statements raised “red flags” in Athens, with veteran “Turkey watchers” scrambling to decipher whether the authoritarian Turkish leader’s comments aimed to further his nationalist credentials to a domestic audience; an indirect censure of Turkey’s Kemalist foundations or even an aggressive “pivot” towards the west in the face of an increasingly multifarious situation on the country’s eastern borders and its predominately Kurdish southeast.