Main opposition New Democracy (ND) party’s foreign affairs sector head on Wednesday demanded that a nine-page resignation letter by now former foreign minister Nikos Kotzias be publicized.
MP Giorgos Koumoutsakos, who served as a foreign ministry spokesman in a previous center-right government, charged that the latest developments in the country’s foreign policy are incomprehensible.
Among others, he referred to a “reversal” of an announcement by Kotzias, during a handover ceremony on Saturday morning, of an intent to increase Greek territorial waters – in certain sea regions – via presidential decrees. Days later, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who assumed the portfolio from his resigned minister, said any extension of territorial waters will come through a legislative process – a development considered as more-or-less delaying such a prospect.
Kotzias’ abrupt statement generated a new round of saber-rattling by the Turkish government, as Ankara doesn’t not recognize the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), while claiming “sovereign rights” under international law that it does not specify.
Meanwhile, in continuing to stir a brewing feud with Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, Kotzias said the former, who heads a small right-wing party that continues to prop up the Tsipras coalition government, accused well-known financier George Soros of “funding” the Greek government to promote the Prespa agreement, among others.
Kotzias, viewed as the architect of the Prespa agreement on the Greek side, said Kammenos engaged in wholesale mudslinging against him at a closed-door Cabinet meeting last Wednesday, and that no other minister uttered a word in his defense.
