Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras reiterated on Thursday that Athens will not allow nor accept any dispute of Greece’s sovereign rights, speaking to coast guard officers at the shipping ministry in Piraeus days after a particularly serious incident in the eastern Aegean between Greek and Turkish vessels.
“Greece isn’t a country that plays games, it is a EU and NATO member-state, a country that is a foundation of stability and security in a destabilized region,” he said.
Earlier, in meeting with the crew-members of the coast guard vessel “Gavdos”, which sustained damage during a collision with a Turkish vessel just off the Imia rock islets, Tsipras told the skipper that “you showed composure, and composure is courage”.
“You guard European borders with composure, professionalism and seriousness,” he underlined, in expressing a thoroughly pro-European and Euro-Atlantic stance.
