“What we have always been asking Europe to do is to become more mature and find a strong voice on Common Foreign and Security Policy, which is happening right now”, stressed Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs Miltiadis Varvitsiotis in an interview with ERT1 TV’s show “Syndeseis” and journalists Kostas Papachlimitzos and Christina Vidou.
“It would be absurd, while we have been urging Europe for so many years to find this strong voice, to not be one of the first to assist in this direction”, he said, responding to political parties’ objections to sending military equipment to Ukraine.
Regarding the possibility of Mr. Erdoğan imitating Mr. Putin, Mr. Varvitsiotis stressed that Greece is an integral part of the West, is adequately armed, enjoys strong diplomatic support and counts on its membership in the European Union and NATO so that at a critical time it will not find itself alone.
As regards the operation to evacuate Greeks from Mariupol, he underscored the difficulty of this operation and congratulated Ambassador F. Kostellenos and the Greek diplomats for the way they perform their duty.
Finally, when asked about the statements of the Russian Embassy in Athens, he said that it has clearly strayed beyond the limits of diplomatic dialogue and that our country is not going to follow this path.
