A joint session of the US Congress received visiting Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis with an extended standing ovation as he stepped to the podium to deliver a 40-minute address in which he stressed – at a moment of heightened Turkish provocations and the still looming threat of war (casus belli) if Greece extends its territorial waters in the Aegean as is its right under law) – that the international community “will not accept revisionism”, a pronouncement that was a clear reference to Ukraine, which Athens has supported from day one of the war (including an arms shipment) to which he devoted a strongly-worded part of his speech, and a thinly veiled reference to Turkey, which has essentially no friends left in Washington after its alliance with Moscow and purchase of advanced Russian S-400 missile systems .
Mitsotakis, the first ever Greek PM to address the US Congress, at the invitation of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one day after his talks at the White House with President Joe Biden, stressed that US-Greece relations are at an excellent level and that there is room for a further deepening of bilateral ties. That includes energy, trade, and investment.
The excellent level of bilateral ties is in large measure due to the most expansive bilateral military cooperation ever, following the amendment, ratified by the Greek Parliament last week, of the Mutual Defence Cooperation Agreement (MDCA, the decades-old backbone of US-Greece military cooperation, with the crucial Souda Bay, Crete, naval and air force base as the jewel in the crown), which includes a new US base in the northeastern port city of Alexandroupolis, Western Thrace, that facilitates the transport of troops and materiel through the Balkans (it has reportedly already been used thusly for the war in Ukraine).
Mitsotakis stressed the struggle of the embattled Ukrainian nation, with a particular reference to the destroyed of Mariupol, home to over 100,000 ethnic Greeks.
He likened the heroic battles of Ukrainian forces to the Siege of Messolonghi, where in the Greek War of Independence the Greeks held out for a year before food ran out and they were slain by the Ottomans when they attempted to break out.
He declared that Putin must not succeed.
Greek national sovereignty, no two-state solution in Cyprus
Mitsotakis also strongly stressed Turkey’s escalation of tensions and provocations – in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, where Ankara has disputed even with gunboat diplomacy tactics Greece’s Exclusive Economic Zone – to which he indicated Athens will respond decisively and forcefully.
He stressed that Greece will not tolerate even the slightest Turkish challenge to its territorial integrity and sovereign rights, including the recent barrage of Turkish Air Force Flights over inhabited Greek islands, which he said must end immediately.
Regarding Turkish-occupied Cyprus, an EU member, Mitsotakis declared that Ankara’s demand for a two state solution, essentially de jure acceptance of Turkey’s 47-year occupation of nearly 40 percent of the island, will never be accepted.
When Mitsotakis made the same statement yesterday at a White House reception honouring the 201st anniversary of the start of the Greek War of Independence, President Joe Biden applauded for some time.
