“Our persistent, serious, and solid arguments and our strong alliances led to the European Council’s decisions. This is the strongest framework of sanctions threatening Turkey if it does not follow the path of cooperation”, Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs Miltiadis Varvitsiotis underscored in an interview on SKAI TV’s ‘Kalimera’, with journalist Giorgos Aftias. “The results of the European Council meeting justified Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ strategy for making the Greek-Turkish issue an EU-Turkey issue”, Mr. Varvitsiotis added, referring to the five pillars of sanctions threatening Turkey and concerning persons and companies, limits on funding from European banking institutions, and sectoral sanctions impacting tourism, exports and energy if it continues its illegal drilling. Regarding the messages sent by the U.S. President through his participation in Thursday’s Summit Meeting and his subsequent telephone conversation with the Greek Prime Minister, the Alternate Minister noted that “it is of great importance that Mr. Biden highlighted for the first time that, during his term, U.S.-Greek relations are expected to be better than ever, inaugurating the next 200 years of friendship and cooperation between the two countries’’. He also sent a strong message to European leaders, underscoring that three countries are of concern to U.S. foreign policy: China, Russia and Turkey. “What seems to be of concern is the EU-Turkey geostrategic relationship, as Turkey constitutes a risk to stability when it opposes every EU decision and is involved in all the conflicts in the region, while democracy is also losing ground within the country”, Mr. Varvitsiotis added.
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