T. CHATZIS: Good morning to Mr. Dendias, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Good morning, Minister.
N. DENDIAS: Good morning, Mr. Chatzis, good morning, Mr. Verikios. Good morning to everyone and to your viewers.
T. CHATZIS: A minute, Minister, while I ask Dimos to give us a brief retrospective on Evros, because he has been following this issue since the 1980s and knows the topic very well. I’d like us to look back briefly before we get to the questions concerning you and your recent statements.
D. VERIKIOS: We have border incidents every year. Some years, these incidents get a little tense. In other words, incidents that are resolved within the day and on the local level. The Evros issue has been with our country for decades now. It's nothing new. The reports I’ve heard ...
T. CHATZIS: Because you said decades, let’s highlight, or let’s remind our viewers, that in 1950, the then leader of Greece, Konstantinos Karamanlis, and the leader of Turkey, Menderes, who was later hanged, agreed to change the course of the river for irrigation reasons.
D. VERIKIOS: What’s the issue?
T. CHATZIS: I want to say that this story goes way back. It’s not ...
D. VERIKIOS: The issue is that, when the water levels recede, something that happens every year, a military unit from the other side appears in the region. Most times, they leave without problems. But sometimes, there are certain years in which we witness what I’ll call a commotion.
T. CHATZIS: Due more to the given state of affairs?
D. VERIKIOS: But today, this year, there is an added, special reason.
T. CHATZIS: A serious reason.
D. VERIKIOS: Serious. Very serious. As a Greek, I am happy that, this year, we managed to do what we hadn’t succeeded in doing for past 50 years. What’s that? Following the other side’s fiasco in Evros on Clean Monday, when they failed to push dozens of migrants into our country, what did we succeed in doing? We succeeded in internationalizing the issue, in bringing Europe here, and our national borders in Evros...
T. CHATZIS: And the projects you’ve talked about are under way.
D. VERIKIOS: They’re under way. Fortification projects are being carried out. These are not simple projects. These projects have to be completed. Projects that were planned decades ago, but we never found the right opportunity to carry them out. Now, we found the opportunity. Look here. The plans we see, these barriers are constructed by the Engineering Corps in Xanthi. They are transported at night. These barriers, these fortification works are set up at night, and the other side wakes up in the morning and sees them ready. They see a different Evros. This is the issue.
T. CHATZIS: On the radio this morning – and we’ll wrap up with this and move on to our questions for the Minister – you said that in the late 1980s the General and head of the armed forces at the time ...
D. VERIKIOS: The late Nikos Kouris. He invited us to a briefing. We never gave ...
T. CHATZIS: On this specific issue.
D. VERIKIOS: Yes. On the specific issue of Evros.
T. CHATZIS: But let’s see why this issue was created.
D. VERIKIOS: Why? “What walks like a duck and quacks like a duck?”
T. CHATZIS: Mr. Dendias, Minister, the main opposition party asked you for some answers. And one of the questions the main opposition party asked directly in its statement is whether Greek military forces pulled out of this specific location, and whether Turkish military-police forces immediately went to that location when the Greek forces had left.
N. DENDIAS: I’m pleased to have this opportunity, because some things have to be cleared up. First of all, things with regard to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are simple. There was a Turkish note asking Greece to provide the coordinates of the fence to be constructed and to not take any action before consulting with the Turkish side. This note was rejected. We told them the fence is being built on Greek territory and that we have no intention of giving them any coordinates.
T. CHATZIS: That we’re not going to explain ourselves to them.
N. DENDIAS: Exactly. We have no reason to report to them on what we are doing in our own home. After that, because movement was observed, we delivered a second note to the Turks, telling them to stop any movement in the region and that the construction was being carried out on Greek territory. This has to do with our relationship with Turkey. And actually, as Mr. Verikios rightly said earlier, these issues in the Evros region go back decades. And you were right to mention the late Konstantinos Karamanlis. I don’t want to go into further detail. There was an effort then, in the 1950s, to find a permanent solution. That effort stopped in 1963; otherwise, we wouldn’t have our current problems. Anyway, it didn’t happen. Now I come to how the problem was created. The cause is simple. The country is caught up ...
T. CHATZIS: Just a minute. The question that was asked ...
N. DENDIAS: May I? I’ll respond to what you said. I’ll answer you candidly.
T. CHATZIS: The main opposition party asked whether our forces left and Turkish forces went in.
N. DENDIAS: And this is very serious. It is very serious, you’re right.
T. CHATZIS: Of course it’s serious.
N. DENDIAS: That’s exactly what I’m coming to. The country’s political system and the opposition parties are getting caught up in the extreme-right rhetoric of Velopoulos. If you will, the country is getting caught up in battle of Golden Dawn’s successors. And the fake news starts. What’s the fake news? First, that Greek territory was occupied. 1.6 hectares, they said. And they showed maps of Greek territory that had supposedly been occupied by the Turks, and serious people are saying this. Allegedly serious people. The main opposition party appeared and did what you said before. It asked the government whether and to what extent the Greek army withdrew in the face of the Turkish gendarmerie.
T. CHATZIS: The main opposition party and a portion of the media are right to ask, given that an issue arose.
N. DENDIAS: Mr. Chatzis, forgive me, but I don’t think they were right to ask. The question itself, the way it was phrased, was insulting.
T. CHATZIS: That’s another matter.
N. DENDIAS: And the only thing that saves the main opposition party is the question mark at the end. The mere claim that our country’s armed forces would abandon Greek territory in the face of the Turkish military police is insulting, isn’t it? They come out and say that the country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs yielded some metres of Greek territory, distorting my statement regarding the change in the riverbed of the Evros river. Where’s the boundary?
T. CHATZIS: Excuse me, Minister, in your statement there is an issue of disputing the precise boundary due to changes in the course of the river – changes of a few dozen metres. That’s the statement that sparked all of this ...
N. DENDIAS: I know the statement. I said it. First of all, it’s not a statement in the sense of ...
T. CHATZIS: What is it? It’s a statement.
N. DENDIAS: This statement concerns the riverbed of the river. And the journalist who asked me the question – he understood this and made the clarification in a post. Anyone who understands and interprets it as yielding national rights may do so, but it means the exact opposite.
D. VERIKIOS: Minister, we’re splitting hairs and turning against ourselves.
N. DENDIAS: That’s exactly right. At least that’s what they’re trying to do.
D. VERIKIOS: Right now, our work is fully under way in Evros. It has to be completed as soon as possible. We’ve waited fifty years.
N. DENDIAS: And it will be completed.
D. VERIKIOS: I’m glad to hear it.
N. DENDIAS: And in spite of Turkey’s efforts. And, I’m sorry to say, in spite of the help some opposition parties are providing – unwittingly, but to score petty political points – by adopting the extreme-right thinking of Velopoulos. The government will do its duty.
T. CHATZIS: Isn’t that a harsh accusation, Minister – accusing the opposition parties of acting like the extreme right?
N. DENDIAS: I didn’t say they were acting like the extreme right. I said, and I repeat, that they adopted Velopoulos’s extreme-right thinking. Look at who made the first statement. In fact, bear in mind that these statements were made over 48 hours after my statements on Hellenic Radio (ERA). My interview was on Wednesday morning. The statements came on Friday evening. If that isn’t proof of fabrication, what is?
D. VERIKIOS: And after an article came out in a British newspaper.
T. CHATZIS: Just a minute, Minister. We’ll talk about all of it. …..
N. DENDIAS: Heedless adoption of an article alleging occupation of national territory? What is that?
T. CHATZIS: We’ll talk about all of it. That’s why I invited you, because that’s not all there is. Just a minute. So, you came here to tell us that this statement you made….there is a matter of dispute over the precise border due to changes in the river’s course.
N. DENDIAS: No. There is no question of disputing the precise boundary.
T. CHATZIS: That’s what you said.
N. DENDIAS: The riverbed changes, not Greece’s border, Mr. Chatzis. Greece’s border in the region is clarified in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and the Protocol of 1926. What changes are the points from which measurements are made, due to the change in the Evros' riverbed. The borders don’t change. Anything else serves the Turkish point of view.
T. CHATZIS: Agreed. There, when the Greeks were there to measure. They went to measure the region ...
N. DENDIAS: Excuse me. Don’t make me describe it for you.
T. CHATZIS: I don’t want you to describe it. I want you to answer the question.
N. DENDIAS: There are clear statements from the Ministry of National Defence that clarify absolutely what concerns the national territory.
T. CHATZIS: When we left, the Turks moved in? I’m asking you straight out.
N. DENDIAS: Mr. Chatzis, I repeat. I said it straight out from the start.
T. CHATZIS: That?
N. DENDIAS: The notes we received and how we responded. I do not monitor the border. I’m the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I defend our country’s rights on the level of my responsibilities. The ministry did this flawlessly and appropriately both times.
JOURNALIST: So, Minister, do you think Turkey, from Turkey's point of view, is trying to get revenge right now? In other words, is it trying to win back what it lost last February when the whole of the Greek state protected its borders?
L. BOLA: Or worse, is it trying to create territorial grey areas?
N. DENDIAS: What Turkey is trying to do is Turkey’s concern. What I have to say is that the situation in Evros is defined by indisputable Agreements: The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and the Protocol of 1926. And since both Turkish Ministers – the Turkish Minister of Defence and the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs – made statements on this over the weekend, I would like to take this opportunity to be clear to them. In Evros, these two contractual texts clearly define the border line. Now, as for the Eastern Mediterranean, which they also officially addressed, I want to tell them this also: Greece extends a hand of cooperation to everyone. Cooperation with Greece – the trilateral mechanisms, the 3+1 cooperation and even the five-sided talks with the Emirates and Egypt – are open to Turkey if Turkey embraces the principles of International Law. But if Turkey believes that it can turn Greece into an island and make the Eastern and Central Mediterranean its own, Turkey is fooling itself. Just so we’re absolutely clear on that.
T. CHATZIS: All right. But there are three issues here. I see three issues. One issue is the controversial statement you made.
D. VERIKIOS: You’re talking about the “dozens of metres” statement ...
N. DENDIAS: No, Mr. Chatzis. My statement wasn’t controversial – if it had been, we would have seen the controversy on Wednesday.
T. CHATZIS: But that’s what started it.
N. DENDIAS: It didn’t start there. It started with the use of the article in “The Sun” alleging occupation of Greek territory, which came out on Friday. My statement – my so-called statement; it was in an interview – was made on Wednesday morning. The journalist who asked me the question has also taken a clear stance on the content of my statement. After that, Velopoulos-style rhetoric began, with parties taking up Velopoulos’s rhetoric. The country’s foreign policy can’t be exercised on that level. I do not intend to continue on that level.
D. VERIKIOS: If we’re at the point where “The Sun” disorients us and turns us against ourselves, we should just close up shop.
T. CHATZIS: The second issue is the substance of the matter, to which you responded that the border is determined by the treaties. There’s no arguing with that.
N. DENDIAS: This response, Mr. Chatzis, is not mine. It has been the response of all Greek governments. No Greek government has taken any other stance and no Greek government will every take any other stance.
T. CHATZIS: But I’m surprised – what event was it that forced you to make a demarche to the Turkish side, Minister?
N. DENDIAS: Turkey made a demarche to us, asking that we send the coordinates of the fence that is to be constructed.
T. CHATZIS: And you responded to that?
N. DENDIAS: Obviously. We responded that the fence is on Greek territory and we won’t give them the coordinates or report to them on the projects we carry out.
D. VERIKIOS: They want the projects to stop. That’s the issue.
T. CHATZIS: Did we make another demarche to the Turkish side, Minister?
N. DENDIAS: There was a second demarche, when there was Turkish movement in the region. Turkish movement was reported to us. They were obviously going to carry out measurements, and for that reason the second demarche was made to Turkey. And we were right to make the second demarche to Turkey. If that demarche had not been made, we would have been neglectful in our protection of the national interest.
T. CHATZIS: Did the Turks respond to that demarche?
N. DENDIAS: So far, the Turks have not responded to that one.
T. CHATZIS: Are the ones who want to carry out the measurements still in the area?
N. DENDIAS: There is no longer any movement. But, I repeat, it is not within my area of responsibility to respond regarding what is happening on the ground.
T. CHATZIS: It's the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence.
D. VERIKIOS: Mr. Cavusoglu says they will return to the border as soon as the pandemic has passed. That's what he said yesterday. "The guards are vigilant." Minister, I'd like you to tell us a little about what is happening with Libya and how accurate the reports in the Greek press are.
N. DENDIAS: Mr. Verikios, the following has happened – I must be very careful about what I say. There is a counter-attack from the GNA forces, the Sarraj forces, with Turkish assistance, in western Libya. In areas close to Tripoli. Recapture of an important airport and withdrawal from the area around Tripoli of Haftar’s forces, which continue to have full control of eastern Libya – the coast adjacent to Greece. There are reports that Russian planes have landed in eastern Libya. The day before yesterday, I had a videoconference on these matters with the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Mr. Norland, with Mr. Pyatt also in the videoconference. I also had a videoconference with the President of the Libyan House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh, on the evening of the same day. Various sides asked us for specific things. Moreover, Malta withdrew its objections as to the command structure of Operation “Irini,” and we are waiting for that operation to begin. That is the current situation. It is a very fluid situation. On the Libya issue, too, Greece remains committed to defending international law, as well as its own interests in the maritime areas – interests that are fully in line with international law.
D. VERIKIOS: Are you optimistic that the efforts and moves Athens made following the Turkey-Libya memorandum will get positive results, in favour of our national interests?
N. DENDIAS: First of all, we have joined the talks in a game from which we were completely absent. The fact that the Americans are asking to talk to the Greek Minister and that the President of the Libyan House of Representatives is talking to the Greek Minister – something which didn’t happen at all previously; we weren’t part of ... The same thing is happening in Syria, by the way. In Syria we are beginning the process of opening our Embassy and we sent a Special Envoy. And we’re discussing this with the French and the Americans. Greece has an obligation to have a presence. As Talleyrand said, “He who is absent is always in the wrong.” So, Greece needs to reassert itself in the Mediterranean basin, as well as in the Balkans. The five-sided talks with Egypt and the Emirates are an enormous national success, because they expand our circle of interlocutors and the circle of states who see Turkey’s provocations in the same way.
T. CHATZIS: I want to ask this: Whether, from the reports you’ve received or from the analysis you carry out at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the government in general, you have the feeling that the Turks are prepared to provoke a ‘heated incident’ in the region.
N. DENDIAS: We are seeing an escalation. If this escalation gets out of control, it could lead anywhere. Our obligation is not to allow Turkey to play its game the way it wants to. We always extend a hand of friendship and cooperation to Turkey. But where? In the framework of International Law and International Treaties. And it is in Turkey’s interest, just as it is in Greece’s interest, for Turkey to take this hand of friendship.
T. CHATZIS: But someone might say: “Minister, you’re doing the right thing and what you say is right, but they constantly harass us, they’re doing what they’re doing in Evros, they’re doing other thing on the islands, flyovers, and we constantly extend a hand of friendship?” Isn’t it a little like they’re having us on? Because that’s how it is.
N. DENDIAS: The Mitsotakis government serves the national interest. When it needed to be firm and absolute – as was the case in Evros, when Turkey was exploiting the migration issue – it was firm and absolute. This doesn’t mean we will let Turkey provoke us into reacting in a way that would suit their plans.
D. VERIKIOS: So, we don’t want to play into Turkey’s hand.
N. DENDIAS: Regarding the domestic issue, Mr. Verikios, I said what I had to say. What I said was harsh, but the opposition’s repeating fake news at this time is ...
D. VERIKIOS: It’s not just the opposition, Mr. Dendias, excuse me. We’re also hearing mutterings from your party, to be perfectly fair.
N. DENDIAS: I’m deaf to muttering. I see only the statements.
T. CHATZIS: In any event, we cannot let down our guard on the borders – on our maritime borders or anywhere. Thank you very much for talking to us today, and I hope we don’t have to discuss this issue again, because, you know – because you and your team monitor social media, I assume – there was a lot of strong criticism of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and yourself and the government on this issue.
N. DENDIAS: But based on fake news, not on the reality of the situation, Mr. Chatzis. Of course, if we had allowed Greek territory to be taken, we would deserve any criticism for that.
T. CHATZIS: And it’s not just them – it’s the big names, the newspapers, the news media, which ...
N. DENDIAS: We get the full picture. A lot of people exposed themselves by believing fake news.
D. VERIKIOS: Just please don’t stop the projects.
N. DENDIAS: They won’t stop.
T. CHATZIS: Thank you, Minister.
May 25, 2020