The meeting of the National Council on Foreign Policy, which took place in a tense climate between the government and the representatives of the opposition parties, was concluded.
According to ANA-MPA, Foreign Minister Giorgos Katrougalos said that consensus did not mean co-management. We are not a caretaker government, we are a majority government acting on its agenda.
With this statement, the Foreign Minister responded to the arguments of opposition parties, in particular to New Democracy and KINAL, which were put forward to this day’s sitting. The opposition parties argued that the government should have limited management of major foreign policy issues because of the pre-election period.
The Foreign Minister stressed that he briefed the representatives of the opposition parties on what was discussed during the prime minister’s recent visit to Turkey, pointing out that the subject of the discussions during the meeting of Alexis Tsipras and Recep Tayyip Erdogan was not to negotiate on the outstanding issues but restart the dialogue on a systematic basis and try to implement the confidence-building measures taken in a direction of tension defuse.
At the same time, he replied how he responded to the implication of the Turkish government spokesman on discussing the issue of islands. “I made it clear that the debate was exclusively on migratory flows to our islands, precisely because we wanted to ensure that the EU-Turkey refugee agreement is enforced faithfully.”
Regarding developments in the Cyprus issue, Giorgos Koutougalos briefed the National Council on the forthcoming meeting with the UN special envoy on the Cyprus dispute Jane Holl on Tuesday.
With regard to Brexit, the Foreign Minister informed the National Council that in the coming days a legislative proposal would be submitted to regulate the rights of British citizens established in Greece on the condition of reciprocity in the treatment of the rights of Greek citizens established in Great Britain.
