Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis is confident that the electrical interconnection project between Greece and Cyprus, known as the Great Sea Interconnector (GSI), will carry on, even in the area where Turkey claims to have rights via the maritime border memorandum signed with the Government of National Accord (GNA) of Libya in November 2019, according to an interview with Kathimerini newspaper.
"Greece is at an important crossroads. It has developed a very important geopolitical diplomatic footprint," Gerapetritis underlined, among others, in a question about Greece's geopolotical role.
Asked on Greek-Turkish relations, he stated: "What I have always said is that we will take the Greek-Turkish rapprochement step by step. The most important thing for me in the effort of the last 18 months is the structured dialogue. And this is, I think, what makes it stand apart from previous decades, when there was always some level of Greek-Turkish dialogue, but it was not structured as it is today, on the basis of three pillars: political dialogue, confidence building measures and the positive agenda. And when we have built a sufficient level of trust, then we can move on to the big discussions. Indeed, I did see a window of opportunity. I was not naive. I have always said that we must not become complacent, which is precisely why the country is strengthening its defense capabilities.
The truth is that we have managed to achieve quite significant results in a relatively short time. One achievement is tranquility. Don’t ask me how long this will last. The reality is that today, [airspace] violations are almost down to zero, when in previous years we had thousands every year. We have very good cooperation on migration, with a significant reduction in inflows. We have tourism from the Turks, who are a constant presence on the Greek islands, strengthening the local economy, and, most importantly, we have had no major crisis.
We have not yet reached that level of understanding that would allow us to go a step further, that will allow us to talk about the only dispute that can be brought to international arbitration - which is the delimitation of the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zone."
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