JOURNALIST: We have the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Giorgos Katrougalos, on the line. Good morning, Minister.
G. KATROUGALOS: Good morning to you and our listeners.
JOURNALIST: You’re in Cyprus, from what I understand.
G. KATROUGALOS: No, I’m back.
JOURNALIST: You went to Cyprus for a Cyprus-Armenia-Greece meeting. Is that right?
G. KATROUGALOS: Yes. You know, the trilateral cooperation schemes are one of the key foreign policy tools we have. Cooperation schemes with countries that think like us, and I think it’s one of the main reasons our diplomatic cachet has risen so much over these past four years.
JOURNALIST: I think that came with the resolution of the Macedonia issue, from what diplomats say.
G. KATROUGALOS: The resolution of the Macedonia issue was another reason our diplomatic capital is especially high right now, and we can spend it where it counts, on our disputes, mainly with Turkey.
JOURNALIST: And tomorrow afternoon you are going to Russia to meet with Lavrov?
G. KATROUGALOS: Exactly. Tomorrow I’m going to a major economic Forum in St. Petersburg. I have attended this Forum systematically for the past three years because it is important, politically and economically, and we will be having a meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister there.
JOURNALIST: Have we shelved Greek-Turkish issues and Turkey’s provocations in Cyprus until the elections, Mr. Katrougalos?
G. KATROUGALOS: The opposite.
JOURNALIST: Tell us.
G. KATROUGALOS: First of all, we have the major issue of de-escalating the tension in the Aegean. Because although neither of the two sides wants either war or a ‘heated incident’ – Turkey does not want to provoke ...
JOURNALIST: How do you know that?
G. KATROUGALOS: That’s our estimation of things. And I don’t think the domestic political forces or the countries we are talking to have a different sense of things. Nevertheless, the building up of tension in the Aegean can lead to an accident or a ‘heated incident’.
JOURNALIST: Excuse me Mr. Katrougalos, I say this because the Turkish presence in the Cypriot EEZ is a major provocation.
G. KATROUGALOS: Listen, let’s look at Turkey’s strategy: Turkey's strategy – in contrast to ours, which is based on international law – is to project power in order to create faits accomplis that it will later invoke to dispute our claims, which are based on international law. To succeed with such a policy, Turkey is trying to create faits accomplis that will be accepted by the international community as facts that create a dispute. But precisely because we have made it clear how things stand in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean, and precisely because we have credibility, due to the diplomatic capital I mentioned earlier, right now Turkey is completely isolated. Its actions are also being denounced as illegal by the European Union and the United States, so this basic endeavour on the part of Turkey – to create grey areas in terms of international law – is coming to nothing.
JOURNALIST: But it isn’t hesitating due to its isolation ...
G. KATROUGALOS: Just a second, I’ll tell you about the isolation, but I still haven’t fully answered the previous question.
JOURNALIST: Yes, tell us.
G. KATROUGALOS: But we have to realise that this projection of power on the part of Turkey isn’t aimed at provoking a war. Turkey knows that the war would be disastrous and won’t have a winner. Turkey sees this. And this is exactly why Turkey is talking to us, not so we can resolve the major disputes that divide us. This isn’t the time for a discussion like that.
JOURNALIST: We have one dispute.
G. KATROUGALOS: No, we have the Cyprus issue and the Aegean.
JOURNALIST: Because we are only aware of the continental shelf as a Greek-Turkish dispute. Okay, there’s also the Cyprus issue ...
G. KATROUGALOS: What I’m saying is that the talks on the confidence-building measures are aimed precisely at managing the tension. Any responsible government has to do this so that we can avoid a ‘heated incident’.
JOURNALIST: Right. Do you know why the Defence Minister ousted Mr. Zachariadis? Because this involves the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
G. KATROUGALOS: The lieutenant general resigned, and I have two remarks on this issue. First of all, it's not up to military personnel to manage political affairs ...
JOURNALIST: But we had 15 Turkish military personnel in Greece to talk about the new CBMs.
G. KATROUGALOS: Exactly. The lieutenant general disagreed with what I said earlier – that we need to talk about confidence-building measures – and he said that there should be no talks in the run-up to elections. I’m saying that a military officer can’t make a call like that. These aren't things to be decided by military personnel, except in dictatorships. What happens on the political level is up to the political leaderships.
JOURNALIST: I assume they carry out instructions from the political leadership and the government.
G. KATROUGALOS: He received instructions, but because we are in the run-up to elections, he thought he shouldn’t carry them out. I say again, this isn’t up to a military leader, and for precisely this reason I don’t think his political decision was appropriate.
JOURNALIST: In the context of these CBMs, are we really discussing with Turkey the possibility of our not identifying and intercepting them when they violate the Athens FIR, and instead just reporting the time and point of entry/exit, Minister?
G. KATROUGALOS: Certainly not. We made it crystal clear that we are not discussing new confidence-building measures. We are discussing how to implement the measures already decided on, like the Yilmaz -Papoulias Memorandum.
JOURNALIST: Let’s come back with a short question on the Cyprus issue. Essentially, Turkey has set up shop within the EEZ and is supposedly doing research – maybe it really is. I don’t know. Does this create a fait accompli that, at a later stage, could be implemented in the Greek EEZ? How are we dealing with this? Because I see that the United States and Europe are condemning the move, but Turkey isn’t taking note.
G. KATROUGALOS: I said this earlier, but apparently I didn’t say it clearly and forcefully.
JOURNALIST: Maybe we didn’t understand.
G. KATROUGALOS: Turkey’s intention right now is not to go there to extract oil or natural gas. They are trying, in terms of international law, to make the area grey. To say that “we were here, so ..”
JOURNALIST: We agree. The question is, how are we dealing with it?
G. KATROUGALOS: Someone can’t create adverse possession by simply opening the gate to a plot of land you own and saying, “this is mine.” All of the neighbours will shout, “it’s not yours, friend, it belongs to this man.” In the same way, right now, when Turkey is coming in for universal international condemnation of its actions, it cannot invoke this unlawful act as a legal precedent. So I’m saying that as long as Turkey is isolated, its provocations cannot produce legal results.
JOURNALIST: So you’re saying it can’t make the area grey.
G. KATROUGALOS: Precisely. It can’t make it grey.
JOURNALIST: It can’t make it grey because others don’t accept it.
G. KATROUGALOS: Obviously, because right now international law says what Greece and Cyprus are arguing. This is beyond doubt, and neither can the other side claim exceptions provided for by international law for special conditions, with facts it is creating itself, given that these facts it is creating are universally condemned by the international community as unlawful.
JOURNALIST: But I will remind you of a historical precedent that still rings loud for all of us, Mr. Minister: that, in March 1987, Andreas Papandreou did not accept a situation similar to the one you are describing.
G. KATROUGALOS: Have we accepted intrusion into the Greek EEZ?
JOURNALIST: Will we see a different reaction if this Turkish tactic is extended to the Greek EEZ?
G. KATROUGALOS: We’ve sent the necessary messages, putting that scenario completely in the realm of fantasy.
JOURNALIST: In other words, “sink the Chora” ...
G. KATROUGALOS: What I’m saying is this: There is a big difference between the cases of Greece and Cyprus. The legality issues are the same. The international politics is the same. But we have a Navy and an Air Force.
June 5, 2019