Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos on Monday insisted that his senior coalition partner, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, knew of his "alternative proposal" to bypass a provisional agreement to finally solve the fYRoM "name issue", adding that the latter merely "didn't approve of it as national policy".
In the very same sentence, during an appearance on the state-run broadcaster, he called his political relations with Tsipras as in "total harmony".
In further describing the "strange bedfellows" coalition in which he serves, he said radical leftist SYRIZA - the dominant party - and his small right-wing Independent Greeks (AN.EL) party never claimed to be "ideologically similar".
"... We came together to get the country back on its feet ..." he said.
The fallout from Kammenos’ seemingly off-the-cuff remarks at the US Pentagon last Wednesday continued to generate political “waves” in Athens almost a week later, with the fissures in the leftist-rightist coalition he props up becoming even more pronounced.
Kammenos, with US Secretary of Defense James Mattis at his side, in short order reiterated his and his remaining MPs' opposition to the Prespa Agreement. He immediately followed up by proposing the creation of a new “Balkan alliance”, outside NATO boundaries and ostensibly aimed at deflecting Russian influence in the region, while he then called for more US bases in Greece. He even ticked off three Greek cities and an island where US military bases can be hosted: Larissa, Volos and Alexandroupolis and Karpathos.
