FM Dendias on his meetings in Rome, response to Turkish counterpart’s comments on migration

Greek Foreign Affairs Minister Nikos Dendias spoke on Tuesday about the meetings he had in Italy and commented on continuing Turkish provocations. In statements to Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA), Dendias said he had the opportunity to meet in Rome with the UN Secretary General’s Special Adviser on Libya Stephanie Williams, with whom he held “an extensive discussion and a comprehensive analysis of the situation in Libya today.”

He then paid a visit, he said, to World Food Programme Executive Director David Beasley, “to whom I presented a check to be used for repairs at the port of Benghazi, which is of vital interest to Greece.” The port, which he has said is a critical entry point for food and humanitarian help, “is less than 20 minutes away from Crete by plane.”

Among other meetings, the Greek FM said he met with 35 ambassadors of African, Asian and South American nations who are credentialled in Greece, “to explain to them Greece’s fixed positions on national issues, and to also request their vote – those who have not committed yet – on Greece’s campaign for a seat in the UN Security Council for the years 2025-2026.”

Responding to a question by ANA-MPA on provocative comments by Turkish Foreign Affairs Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu related to the migration issue following his meeting with his Finnish counterpart, Dendias said, “I have not read the Turkish minister’s statements, and I will call my friend and counterpart to ask what the Turkish minister said. But I would like to be explicit: the last thing that Greece needs is lectures and lessons by Turkey on human rights issues and on handling the migration issue. Turkey – Turkey, I repeat – is the one to use the migration issue as a political tool and uses migrants to blackmail the European Union and Greece. So it has no right to speak.”

SOURCE; AMNA