Mitsotakis calls Aegean tensions a light breeze as Tsipras and ELAS attack his Turkey stance

Rubio's visit and the positive verdict

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told SKAI radio on Friday, 9 October, that the visit to Athens by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio left a positive imprint. He said the trip was part of the institutionalised strategic dialogue between Greece and the United States, and that Rubio rarely travels abroad for such dialogues, having gone to India last year before coming to Greece. Mitsotakis said the visit confirmed a relationship that now extends beyond defence and diplomacy into energy, interconnection and investment. Rubio did not name Turkey when discussing the Greece-Cyprus interconnection cable, referring instead to the 'sensitivities' of other countries.

Undoubtedly the imprint of Rubio's visit was positive. He showcased Greece's role as an irreplaceable strategic partner in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Mitsotakis also said Rubio's speech at the Pnyx, with the Acropolis behind him, reflected Greece's soft power. Greece also closed defence equipment agreements worth four billion dollars in the same days.

The 'light breeze' and the Kasos dispute

Asked about the cable and Kasos, Mitsotakis described Greek-Turkish relations with a weather metaphor. He said there is a breeze and a light swell in the Aegean, which he called unremarkable, and that Greek-Turkish meetings with the Turkish president follow the same pattern as changing weather.

The waters in the Aegean, let's say, there is a breeze, a light swell, but even this is not unusual, you know.

ELAS responded in a statement that the remark amounted to calling a Turkish pullback at Kasos a light breeze. The party asked why a light breeze had kept the cable project frozen for two years, and asked the prime minister what he meant by 'storm'. ELAS also cited Turkish actions at Kasos and an announcement of two Turkish marine parks in the Aegean, which it called illegal. Tsipras said that Greece should have heard support on the issues that matter most in relations with Turkey.

We should have heard a word of support on the critical issues concerning our relations with Turkey and Turkey's violations of international law, and we heard nothing.

Tsipras also said nothing was said about the Guterres framework for the Cyprus problem. Former prime ministers Tsipras and Kostas Karamanlis, the latter from New Democracy, both voiced concern about Mitsotakis's foreign policy.

The cable, Israel and the Meridian stake

Mitsotakis said the interconnection can proceed without any concession on Greek sovereign rights. He argued that the United States supports the project, which may extend to Israel, and that the project has been European from the start. He cited more than 600 million euros in European subsidy and the French investment fund Meridian as majority shareholder.

It is a European project, it was a European project from the start, because I want to remind you that it receives over 600 million euros in European subsidy.

A senior diplomatic source, speaking anonymously, read Rubio's remarks as clear US support, saying he had not said 'find them' and that the opposite was true. The source declined to disclose private talks on what Washington would do if an incident like Kasos recurred. On Israel, Mitsotakis said Greece's strategic relationship is with the state rather than with any particular government, citing the Achilles Shield, whose source code Greece will hold.

F-35s and the 2014 to 2022 record

Mitsotakis said Tsipras was prime minister when Turkey ordered F-35s. ELAS replied that Turkish F-35 orders to the United States began in May 2014 under a government in which Mitsotakis was a minister. The party said coordination with diaspora organisations in 2017 to 2019 under Tsipras led to the East Med Act and an embargo on Turkey in July 2019. ELAS also recalled a parliamentary debate on 12 May 2022, saying Mitsotakis shouted that Tsipras's F-16 warning was 'a lie'.

ELAS further claimed that Greece has granted six bases and the port of Alexandroupolis to the United States, and that the US president says he will find a way to sell F-35s to Turkey. Mitsotakis, for his part, framed the F-35 and F-16 upgrade as part of a strategic qualitative advantage. The ELAS statement closed by criticising Mitsotakis's call for national consensus while acknowledging the need for one.