“The national stance and the national front against Turkey must remain unbroken and national issues must be kept out of the election debate”, Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs, Miltiadis Varvitsiotis said, speaking today to Filippos Filippakopoulos on Naftemporiki TV. He added that people are demonstrating confidence in the government’s armament program and its handling of the Turkish threat.
Regarding Turkish provocations and continuous threats, Mr. Varvitsiotis stated that we are responding with seriousness and in a robust manner, we are arming ourselves, expanding our strategic and military alliances, and making our country an integral part of the Western security system. When asked to comment on the recent reports about the Chief of the Hellenic National Defence General Staff (HNDGS) as per the wiretapping case, he expressed his full confidence in General Konstantinos Floros, under whose leadership – as he said – the Armed Forces have now at their disposal a huge armament program, which they could not have imagined in the past and which is being implemented with absolute transparency through inter-state rather than commercial agreements, as was the case in the past. The Alternate Minister added that the General is a person who has earned the trust of the Greeks and in whom every Greek citizen sees a Greek officer who stands up to the circumstances and faces Turkish provocative conduct on a daily basis with vigor, diligence and courage.
When asked about the US President’s proposal to Congress for the F-16 sale to Turkey and F-35 to Greece, the Alternate Minister underscored to RealFM and journalist Katia Makri that the West has not decided whether Turkey is an ally or an adversary and that it is trying to maintain a relationship with Ankara through rebalancing moves. He recalled that when New Democracy and Kyriakos Mitsotakis took over the country’s administration, Turkey participated in the F-35 program but this has now been reversed, with Greece joining this program and Turkey trying to join the F-16 program.