Ambassador Vasilios Bornovas, who served in the Embassy of Greece in Beirut in 2012, spoke about developments in the Middle East, Greek-Turkish relations, Cyprus and the situation in South Korea in an interview on Radio 98.4.
For the first time publicly, he claims that he has his knowledge of video material that proves that in 2013, the jihadists in Syria executed Metropolitan Pavlos of Aleppo, brother of Patriarch John X of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All The East, and Metropolitan Yohanna Ibrahim of the Syriac Orthodox Church, highlighting the danger that the current Metropolitan of Aleppo, Mr Ephraim, faces since the capture of the country’s largest city by the Turkish-backed jihadists.
Metropolitan Pavlos and Metropolitan Ibrahim disappeared in 2013, during some of the worst days of the Syrian War, while seeking the release of two kidnapped priests. Militants surrounded their car, and the driver was killed in the gunfire, with a survivor later testifying that the kidnappers were not speaking Arabic and appeared to be from Chechnya. There were no ransom demands from the terrorists, and the borders of the two Metropolitans have never been found.
The ambassador notes that the Greek political system has practised a micro-minded foreign policy throughout history, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. This policy denies Hellenism in the Arab World and in Greek-Turkish relations.
He spoke about Greek foreign policy having an absence of a vision and strategy for the past 40 years, which watches the developments numbly at a time when the Orthodox Christian community in the Middle East is also under persecution.
Ambassador Bornovas described Israel-Turkey relations and how the Jewish State secures its strategic depth in Cyprus and Greece for its own interests while Greece, operating with a micro-minded policy, simply watches developments transform at our own expense.
He summarises all the developments and actions in the Middle East, noting that the Palestinian issue is the key to creating calm in the wider region.
For Greek-Turkish issues, Mr Bornovas is particularly scathing about Athens’s foreign policy approach, stressing that even the European Union seems to be preventing Greece from speaking in support of it in issues with Turkey.
The ambassador also describes Greece’s withdrawal from Greek history in the Arab world and responsibilities for Hellenism and Orthodoxy in the wider region.
READ MORE: Archbishop Ieronymos: “Greek Orthodoxy could be completely eliminated in Syria.”
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