Samaras hits back at Mitsotakis, denying he whitewashed Turkey with a friendship treaty

A written attack on the prime minister

Former prime minister Antonis Samaras hit back at Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday, 3 November 2026, in a statement responding to remarks the prime minister made in an interview on Alpha Radio. Mitsotakis had referred to the dialogue Samaras's government held with Turkey in 2012-2014, a period one report gives as 2012-2015. Samaras accused him of looking past the unsuccessful results of a UN vote on Turkish-Libyan illegal actions instead of addressing that vote. The statement was issued as a direct reply, with Samaras writing that the prime minister should be worried about the vote rather than about his predecessor's contacts with Ankara.

What Samaras says was absent then

Samaras listed a series of developments that, in his account, did not exist during his time in office. There was no illegal Turkish-Libyan memorandum, no continuous Turkish navtex in the Aegean and no Blue Homeland doctrine adopted as Turkey's official policy against Greece. He also said his government had not backed Sinirlioglu, the figure at the centre of the Blue Homeland doctrine, in any OSCE forum, while Ankara now promotes him for UN secretary-general. According to Samaras, the Kasos incidents had not happened and Hagia Sophia had not yet been turned into a mosque. He concluded that Turkey created no fait accompli at Greece's expense during that period.

“We did not whitewash Turkey internationally by signing a Treaty of Friendship with it.”

That sentence addressed the criticism that the Treaty of Friendship signed under his government had given Ankara international cover. Samaras framed the treaty as the central point of contention and set it against the list of later developments he attributed to the current period.

Mitsotakis's rebuttal

In the Alpha interview, Mitsotakis said he was struck that Samaras did not remember how he had handled Turkey as prime minister. He recalled that the dialogue of that time took place amid grey zones, a divided Cyprus and violations, and said Turkey's policy had not changed. He added that Samaras had talked with Turkey back then, had met Erdogan and had made statements of friendship. Mitsotakis also demanded that former prime ministers remember their own record.

“I expect former prime ministers to remember their own history and what they themselves did.”

Samaras's response returned to the same period and reversed the comparison, presenting the 2012-2014 years as a time of fewer tensions. He repeated that the Greek public would judge the two governments' records for itself.

Closing exchange

Samaras ended his statement with a jab at the prime minister's public messaging. He said that however much Mitsotakis tried to feed people with 'pizzas' and 'village salads', the Greek public knows, judges and compares. The exchange was thus framed by both leaders around the Turkish file, with Mitsotakis focusing on Samaras's record and Samaras focusing on the UN vote and the treaty.