“Spain saved Europe’s honor,” SYRIZA officials argue, referring to the stance of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who said “no” to Donald Trump when the US requested to use bases located in Spain to attack Iran. At the same time, officials from Koumoundourou note that it should be made clear that American bases in our country will not be involved in the war.
Read: Spain sends aid to Cyprus: The most modern ship of the Spanish Navy in the Eastern Mediterranean
SYRIZA Central Committee Secretary Stergios Kalpakis, referring to this issue, emphasized that Greece should have maintained exactly the same stance as Spain. “That’s why attacks from the Right against Sánchez, the socialist prime minister of Spain, for his stance toward Trump, have intensified in public discourse,” he noted characteristically, and added: “A stance that at this moment saves Europe’s honor. We go to television panels with New Democracy officials and, instead of discussing whether our country will have a multidimensional foreign policy, as SYRIZA-PS says, we hear them saying we shouldn’t speak, shouldn’t do anything, should sit ‘quietly’ with Trump. Are we a country that is a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, that is in the hard core of the European Union, and we won’t say anything? These are incredible things to be said in the public sphere by MPs and New Democracy officials. They have lost all measure, every notion of international law has been leveled.”
Regarding Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ stance, Koumoundourou officials insist he follows the strategy of being a predictable and given ally of the United States and Israel.
“Mr. Gerapetritis met with Mr. Rubio and said ‘we are not observers, we are co-shapers of developments.’ Of these developments, the tragic ones? That lead the planet to destruction? The government hasn’t said a word against US and Israeli intervention in Iran. The strategy of being a given ally doesn’t help our foreign policy interests,” they noted characteristically.
The same people also insist on convening the Council of Political Leaders, noting that SYRIZA and New Left submitted a joint request to both the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister. “The Prime Minister should have already done this, to chart a national line. Mr. Mitsotakis, on the contrary, said ‘come privately so I can brief you.’ But the Council of Political Leaders for charting a line is different from private briefing. What the situation requires is what SYRIZA-PS says. Mr. Mitsotakis, because he obviously has a specific strategy, which has characteristics of private foreign policy, believes that he alone can and should handle all these issues, without being accountable to anyone,” Stergios Kalpakis noted.
Koumoundourou officials clarify that, regarding the deployment of frigates and F-16s to Cyprus, from the first moment SYRIZA’s position was clear and declared by the party president in the Parliamentary Group and with two public interventions in Parliament. “Cyprus is in the European Union, and this is a great national success for security reasons too. Here Mélenchon came out regarding aid from France and said it was legitimate, not in a logic of involvement and offensive actions, but of protecting a member country of the European Union,” Koumoundourou officials note.
They also point out that there is an attempt to identify those who are against the war, those who are against this attack, those who are against the violation of international law, with the theocratic regime in Iran and say that “we are with the mullahs.” “Our answer is clear: Did the interventions made in previous decades against barbaric regimes, against dictatorial regimes, have positive results, or did they bring even greater chaos? Or did they result, among other things, in Greece facing the biggest refugee crisis since World War II? In two-three years all these people will come out and tell us that supposedly we want the country to be a free-for-all, while we are saying that these are the consequences of war. SYRIZA-PS has no lessons to learn from anyone about human rights. We have chronically taken a clear position and supported the movements that existed at times against these regimes. We try to face this difficult situation with maximum responsibility, from a position of principles for international law, and certainly with the experience of a party that governed the country and has handled difficult situations,” SYRIZA Secretary Stelios Kalpakis noted.
