"The EU must finally consider what it wants to do with Russia on a long-term basis ... instead of reacting in a morally direct, correct, but spasmodic fashion," Nikos Kotzias told the semi-state Athens News Agency.
Upon coming to power last week, the hard-left Greek government refused to approve an EU statement threatening new sanctions against Russia, following deadly fighting in the key port city of Mariupol between Ukrainian forces and Moscow-backed rebels.
A more conciliatory EU statement was eventually adopted at a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels on Thursday.
Kotzias has been invited by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to visit Russia and Ukraine.
"Greece cannot sever its historic ties to Russia, but it can play a role to mediate and develop negotiations between" Russia and Ukraine, said Kotzias, who was a senior member of the Greek Communist party until 1989.
He warned that the EU risked further "destabilizing" the region with its actions.
"This destabilization will cross the Russian-Ukrainian border, reach the Middle East and cross into North Africa, a sort of sickle through which tens of thousands of refugees, jihadists, diseases and all sorts of dangers will emerge," he said.
Kotzias stressed, meanwhile, that Greece should not be treated as a "pariah state" because of its debts.
"At the last European council (of foreign ministers), my colleagues understood that they cannot behave towards Greece as if it were a pariah state because it owes money," he said.
"Owing money is one thing, and abandoning one's rights in the EU is quite another," he said.
A professor of political theory at Piraeus University who has also taught at Harvard, Oxford and Magdeburg, Kotzias has authored books titled "Greece, a Debt Colony" and "A Policy of Salvation Against the Troika" — the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank trio of creditors that plied severe austerity measures on Athens.
AFP
[timesofindia.indiatimes.com]
1/2/15
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La Grèce redéfinit ses axes en politique étrangère...
ReplyDeleteLe ministre grec des Affaires étrangères Nikos Kotzias sera aujourd'hui à Moscou pour s'entretenir avec son homologue russe Sergueï Lavrov, écrit mercredi 11 février le quotidien Kommersant.
Le nouveau gouvernement grec d'Alexis Tsipras revendique le rôle de pont entre la Russie et l'Occident. Les experts sont persuadés qu'Athènes a l'intention de manœuvrer entre Moscou et Bruxelles pour se rapprocher au maximum de la Russie dans la mesure où cela n'entrave pas les négociations avec ses trois créanciers.
L'annonce de la visite de Nikos Kotzias à Moscou a été une surprise même pour les diplomates grecs. Selon certaines informations, le personnel de l'ambassade de Grèce en Russie en a été informé seulement lundi. Le ministre grec arrivera à Moscou de Berlin, où il a rencontré hier le ministère allemand des Affaires étrangères Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Durant leur entretien, Nikos Kotzias et Sergueï Lavrov aborderont des questions aussi bien économiques que politiques. "Il sera en particulier question du gazoduc Turkish Stream. Si ce projet voyait le jour, la Grèce et la Turquie se transformeraient en vendeurs de gaz à l'UE. Hormis le profit économique pour les deux pays, cette configuration aurait également des bénéfices géopolitiques: les relations entre Athènes et Ankara seraient bien plus prévisibles", prédit Alexandre Rytov de l'Institut d'Europe affilié à l'Académie des sciences de Russie..................http://fr.sputniknews.com/presse/20150211/1014565875.html#ixzz3RQlCO4wQ
11/2/15