“Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ message on Libya was heard in Tripoli and appropriately conveyed”, Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs Miltiadis Varvitsiotis stressed on OPEN TV’s morning show ‘Ora Ellados’, with journalists Akis Pavlopoulos and Dora Koutrokoi. Mr. Varvitsiotis noted that this was clear from the statement made in Ankara by Libya’s transitional prime minister, who “said it where it needed to be heard”.
The Alternate Minister pointed out that “Libya must again become a country that projects stability and controls its migrant and refugee flows. It can become an energy partner for Europe, but it also has to respect international law as set down in the Law of the Sea”. He also reiterated that the Turkish-Libyan ‘memorandum’ “is not recognised by the international community: It is a ‘memorandum’ that, according to the European Union, has no legal effect and flagrantly violates the sovereign rights of Greece. It is a ‘memorandum’ regarding which we are asking the Libyan side to revise its stance”.
More specifically, the Alternate Minister stressed that “it is very important for there to be coordination on the part of Europe, and what we achieved in the case of Turkey – in other words, putting the Greek-Turkish dispute onto the European Council agenda – it can also happen in the case of Libya. In this context, Mr. Varvitsiotis underscored the special importance of the round of talks Greece has started with Italy, which plays a key role in Libya. The Alternate Minister will be travelling to Rome tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts, in a follow-up to Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ meeting with Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi.
