Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias in an interview with POLITICO highlighted that Germany is not taking a leadership role in the EU by insisting on continuing their arms sales to Turkey despite its daily provocations and threats of war with Greece and Cyprus.
“I really fail to understand Germany’s reluctance to use the enormous power of its economy to set a clear example to countries that they must obey international law,” Dendias said in an interview with POLITICO.
Despite Turkey's attempts to carve Greece's sovereign rights in the East Mediterranean with the Muslim Brotherhood Government of National Accords in Libya, whose mandate to rule by the United Nations expired in December 2017, Germany insists on selling Turkey six Type 214 submarines.
“I understand the financial issue, but I am sure Germany also understands the huge contradiction of providing offensive weapons to a country that threatens the peace and stability of two EU countries. This is the definition of the word contradiction,” he said.
Even ignoring Turkey's threats to Greece and Cyprus, Turkey in recent years has continued its campaign of ethnically cleansing Kurds, while also going to war with Armenia, Syria, Libya and Iraq.
Dendias said he did not understand why Greece should even have to raise the matter with Berlin “instead of Germany realizing by itself, from the checks and balances of its own system, that this is not compatible with its role in Europe.”
Despite this, Germany has maintained a policy of appeasing Turkey at the budgetary expense of Greece who on a daily basis must deploy fighter jets to chase off Turkish warplanes violating Greece's airspace, including flying directly over Greek islands.
Dendias also highlighted Germany's “appeasement” policy towards Turkey in his interview with POLITICO.
The Greek Foreign Minister said that if EU leaders followed the same course as last time when there were vetoes to sanctions against Greece, it would mean they had not learned their lesson, meaning the Greek participation in the upcoming European Council meeting will be a waste of time.
“If you do the same things you did in the past and expect another outcome in the future, this is something described with the word ‘naive’ — and that’s a mild term for it, I would say,” Dendias said.
“Europe would send the wrong message to all the countries in the broader region. Whoever acts arbitrarily, whoever violates international law, whoever blackmails, is at the end of the day left unpunished or is even rewarded.”
Dendias also suggested that the presence of the United States is necessary since the European military presence is lacking.
“I believe that the region needs the presence of the United States and particularly its military presence, in a way that would offset the lack of European military presence in the region,” he said.
