Greek President sends message to Turkey: Greece is ready to defend its country

On Tuesday, the President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopis Pavlopoulos paid an official visit to the islands of Symi, Farmakonissi, Agathonissi and Chios, accompanied by Defence Minister Panos Kammenos and Hellenic National Defence General Staff chief Admiral Evangelos Apostolakis.

Their proximity to Turkey and the recent escalation of tensions between the two countries made the visit of the President all the more relevant and one that aimed at sending a message in all directions.

Pavlopoulos addressed a battalion of the National Guard reserves, praising their readiness for the defence of Greek and European borders, and referred to issues concerning relations with Turkey.

"All we are saying to Turkey concerning its European course is 'Respect international law in its entirety. Respect the European acquis.'...Progressively, and after it has absorbed this European acquis, its way is open," he said.

Both international law and the European acquis stipulated certain things, however, among them the extent of the Greek and European borders.

"In this region where we are now, throughout the Aegean, there is the Treaty of Lausanne on one side and the other side the 1947 Paris Treaty, which concerns the incorporation of the Dodecanese islands in our national core. These two elements of international legality, the Treaty of Lausanne and the Paris Treaty, leave no doubt," Pavlopoulos noted, repeating that there were no "grey zones" in the Aegean.

"When the Dodecanese islands were united with Greece in 1947 ... it was expressly written in the Paris Treaty of 1947 that the Dodecanese and 'adjacent islets' are being handed over," he added.