Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras addressed a UN event on Monday in New York City for late South African statesman Nelson Mandela, where referred directly to what he called his government’s achievements since assuming power in January 2015 and the recent end of the bailout era for the country.
The event, entitled “Nelson Mandela Peace Summit”, was held on the sidelines of the 73rd UN general assembly.
Among others, the leftist Greek premier said Greece has exited successive austerity programs while at the same time protecting the weakest.
Speaking in English, he also said his leftist-rightist coalition government has reinforced the right of citizenship for the children of legal migrants to Greece; boosted the rights of a Muslim minority in the Thrace province and protected the rights of people that identify as LGBT.
In the wake of recent and scathing criticism that his government has misused hundreds of millions of euros in EU funds to deal with the migrant/refugee crisis plaguing the country since 2015, Tsipras shot back by saying Athens is managing “unprecedented refugee flows, while respecting human rights”.
Finally, he said Athens is resolving international differences, specifically citing a recent bilateral agreement with Skopje to overcome the quarter-of-a-century fYRoM “name issue”.
