Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs M. Varvitsiotis’ interview on REAL FM 97.8 radio station with journalist G. Papadopoulos-main points (23.08.2021)

“Greece does not share borders with Afghanistan so as to be the country which Afghans who feel threatened by the Taliban regime want to seek refuge in,” Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs, Miltiadis Varvitsiotis made clear in an interview today with REAL FM 97.8 and journalist G. Papadopoulos. As he added, “we are not going to adopt practices of the past such as the one of ‘we have opened our borders and we are waiting for you’; Greece already hosts tens of thousands of Afghans, a very large percentage of whom live in our country under asylum status”. He also pointed out that “Greece cannot be a country of first asylum for Afghan refugees and this message has been sent primarily by the Prime Minister and by us all in both bilateral and multilateral contacts”.

Regarding the position of the European Union, Mr. Varvitsiotis noted that “Europe has swept the issue of refugees and migrants under the carpet”, underlining the serious reservations Greece and the other Mediterranean countries hold about the new Pact on Migration and Asylum proposed by the Commission. The Alternate Minister stressed that Greece has two main requests, “first of all, that there should be a financial burden-sharing for hosting refugees, and secondly that there should be serious relocation and repatriation agreements concerning illegal and irregular migrants”.

Asked about the impact of the refugee wave from Afghanistan on Greek-Turkish relations and the contact by telephone between the Greek Prime Minister and the Turkish President, Mr. Varvitsiotis pointed out that the Turkish President is “pressured by this situation internally”, while, he added, that the message is being received that Turkey’s policy is changing in comparison to the one it pursued in Syria, where it tried to make use of the hospitality it gave to the Syrians.

Finally, Mr. Varvitsiotis noted that so far three Greek citizens have been successfully repatriated from Afghanistan.