Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos made the following statement in reference to various articles on what he said yesterday in Parliament – and not to journalists, to whom he made no relevant statements – in response to a Current Question from the President of the Independent Greeks party, Panos Kammenos, regarding Greece’s stance at the NATO Bucharest Summit of 2008 on the accession of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the Atlantic Alliance:
“At the 2008 NATO Summit Meeting, the Greek government handled the issue of the Alliance’s enlargement very well. I also said this at the time, as an opposition MP. But the handling of this issue by the Greek government and, mainly, the Alliance’s overall stance on this issue are described correctly, precisely as I described them yesterday, as well as a few months ago, in Parliament.
Any given Foreign Minister, when addressing Parliament, speaks for and commits his or her country internationally, and is thus obliged to be absolutely precise in terms of international law, because only in this way is the national interest protected. These issues – in neither their current nor historical dimensions – are not open to domestic political exploitation.
January 31, 2014