Main opposition New Democracy (ND) party on Sunday demanded explanations over what it calls relations between Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Venezuela, following a same-day front-page newspaper article alleging that the leftist Greek premier had asked for assistance from Caracas' radical socialist government as far back as 2013 in case Greece abandoned the Euro zone.
According to the article in the Sunday edition of "Eleftheros Typos", Tsipras, who was the main opposition leader in 2013, met with Venezuelan officials in Moscow in 2013, where he discussed such a prospect. His close aide, Nikos Pappas, a top minister in the Cabinet today, was also in attendance, the paper claims.
In pointing to the press report, the center-right opposition party reminded of another trip, by Pappas this time, to Venezuela itself, in the company of a Cypriot attorney reportedly specializing in offshore companies.
The front-page story by "Eleftheros Typos" comes in the wake of recent statements by one-time SYRIZA ministers, including Yanis Varoufakis, that the possibility of a "Grexit" was actually being considered by the leftist-rightist coalition government in the first half of 2015 - the annus horribilis of Greece's crisis years.
