On Sunday, the Greek Foreign Minister, Nikos Dendias, said that the current Greek government has not have a lot of choices when it comes to power, but the priority is to guarantee that Libyan shores across from Crete are controlled by friendly powers.
In an interview with the Greek To Vima newspaper, Dendias said, “The Greek government has two basic goals, namely preventing the establishment of a Turkish military base in Libya and urging the Prime Minister of the Government of National Accord (GNA) to backtrack from the Libyan memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with Ankara over maritime zones.”
The Turkey-Libya MoU was widely dismissed by Egypt, Cyprus, and Greece as an infringement on their economic rights in the oil-rich sea.
The top diplomat pointed out that Greece is open to exploratory talks with Turkey but has no intention of accepting “an expansion of the agenda” as the neighbouring country appears to want.
Dendias also stated, “As Europeans, we have not reached a consistent conclusion about the direction we want the relations with Turkey to take.” Greece’s strategy of the 1990s to seek the resolution of differences within the framework of the EU was courageous, but this is no longer feasible with Turkey’s divergence.”
Greece and Turkey have been at odds for decades over sea boundaries but recent discoveries of natural gas and drilling plans across the east Mediterranean have exacerbated the dispute.