FM: Greece’s policy is to ‘keep roads open’ for Balkans and Turkey

Greece does not want to hold “grudges” nor prove it has the smartest comebacks, Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias noted on Friday, in joint statements with the EU High Representative and Vice-President of the European Commission Federica Mogherini, following their meeting in Athens.

“Our foreign policy is to keep the roads open for all the Balkans and Turkey toward a modern, progressive way of exercising transnational relations and foreign policy. And if we can help by even one thousandth to avert a return to the past, it is a gain for our culture, our two countries and for all,” Kotzias added.

The meeting with Mogherini revolved around the global strategy of EU foreign policy, with emphasis on European enlargement toward the Western Balkans and Turkey, but only on condition that they meet the necessary accession criteria.

Asked about Turkey and its record on human rights violations, both Kotzias and Mogherini said it was important for Turkey to make the required steps toward the EU.

“We want Turkey to be a good neighbour,” the Greek foreign minister stressed, while noting that Greece “has only to gain” if Turkey was on a European path.

“As a friend of Turkey, I feel sorrow when I realise that it is thinking in terms that are behind our times,” Kotzias added. “In the Cyprus issue, also, when it thinks it must have rights of intervention, occupation troops. These are the phenomena of another era that has now ended,” he underlined.

Referring to the recent arrest and imprisonment of a German human rights activist in Turkey, which he said had made German-Turkish relations more difficult, the minister repeated that such displays of power belonged in the past. “It is not a creative display of power based on a culture of consensus and compromise, a European culture,” he commented. When Turkey looked back and used the tools of the past, this made it a more difficult neighbour, he continued.

Mogherini disclosed that the issue of human rights in Turkey would come up during her meetings with the Turkish foreign minister and European affairs minister next week.

“Clearly we expect Turkey to make some steps that show it is bound by the same principles that it signed when it became a member of the Council of Europe and a candidate for EU membership,” Mogherini noted. She underlined that human rights must be respected and upheld, including freedom of the press and the rights of the opposition.

Praising Greece’s role and contribution to the accession progress of Western Balkan countries, Mogherini clarified that the security, peace and stability of the region were a high priority for the EU and herself, personally. She also noted that opportunities in this direction will appear over the coming months.

With respect to the Cyprus issue, she claimed that Kotzias had done excellent work and expressed her conviction that there was “sufficient substance to continue the process when the political conditions are right.”

“We hope to receive the united island as an EU member-state,” she responded to questions, explaining that this means that “any solution of the Cyprus issue must be consistent with and compatible with the EU security architecture and the European acquis, as it is defined, on what is acceptable and what is not.”

Lastly, she hailed Greece’s contribution to the shaping of the EU’s foreign policy, stressing the importance of a “strong pillar of multilateral action, development and cooperation, of peace and humanitarian effort, as a foreign policy approach that seeks to solve problems through diplomacy.”