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Category: Greece

  • Interview with Israeli FM Avigdor Liberman

    Interview with Israeli FM Avigdor Liberman

    Interview with Israeli FM Avigdor Liberman on Reka Radio (Russian)

    Under no conditions or provocations can any flotilla or ship harm our
    country’s political independence and reach the Gaza Strip.
    (Translation by Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

    INTERVIEWER: Despite Nicosia’s warning, the Lebanese ship with 60 women on board – Lebanese, Palestinian and European activists – will set sail on
    Sunday, August 22, with the infamous mission of trying to breach the naval
    blockade on the Gaza Strip. And the Cyprus authorities have unequivocally declared they will not allow the ship to enter Cyprus’s territorial waters and will turn the ship away as soon as it approaches its shores. Mr. Minister, is this declaration the result of Cyprus’s policy or an achievement by Israel’s foreign policy?

    FM LIBERMAN: This declaration is without a doubt part of the new relations between us and Cyprus. It reflects our new approach of a multilateral policy. Suffice it to say that over the past year and a half I met with Cyprus’s foreign minister on six occasions, including twice when he visited Israel and on my visit to Cyprus. Our ministers of tourism and social affairs also paid visits. In the autumn, the president of Cyprus is scheduled to make the first ever visit to the State of Israel. In general, this entire spectrum: the Middle East and Balkan states, meaning Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania – all these are countries with which we are developing especially close ties. It’s no secret, I paid my visits and just recently the prime minister of Greece visited here, and President Peres visited Bulgaria and Romania. So despite the relative deterioration in our relations with Turkey, we do have other alternatives.

    INTERVIEWER: In other words, Israel’s handprint, in the positive sense of
    the word, is today being made in many places, including in Cyprus. Is Israel
    ready for the next wave of history, which will take place after the women
    equipped with medicine for suffering Palestinian cancer patients are
    prevented from reaching Gaza?

    FM LIBERMAN: I hope we do indeed succeed in foiling this next flotilla while
    it is still in Cyprus. However part of Cyprus is Turkish, so there’s a
    chance they will use     Famagusta port, where we have a lot less influence.     If they anchor in Limassol, they probably won’t be able to sail out of there. At any rate, our position is absolutely clear and firm – under no conditions or provocations can any flotilla or ship harm our country’s political independence and reach the Gaza Strip.

    INTERVIEWER: There is another interesting angle here. The Lebanese prime
    minister and chairman of parliament have refused to make any kind of
    statement in support of the actions of the new “peace-loving” ship. Samar
    Ali Hajj, one of the woman organizers of the voyage, reported that the two
    refused to meet with her. This refusal indicates that Beirut officially does
    not support this action. Again, is this about Israeli pressure or a natural
    lack of desire to support.

    FM LIBERMAN: This is partly our doing. We indirectly contacted members of
    the Quartet – France, the United States, and the other members. We appealed
    to the president of France, who has great influence in Lebanon. Of course we
    also contacted the State Department and the UN secretary-general. Lebanon
    must understand that it will bear the full brunt of responsibility for this
    kind of provocation. I suppose they understand it even without our
    explanations. So under no circumstances do they want to bring on a new round of escalation in the relations between our two countries. In my humble opinion, their position is clear, simple and logical.

    INTERVIEWER: The humanitarian activity is not limited to the “Mariam”.
    Another ship, carrying 60 containers of foodstuffs, office equipment and
    other things, departed on Wednesday evening from Algeria en route to Egypt
    and from there to the Gaza Strip. Is this more complex and more volatile?

    FM LIBERMAN: We hope this ship will reach El Arish port, where the entire
    cargo will be unloaded; and then from there, in the usual manner, under
    strict observance of all the inspection rules, the cargo will be transferred
    to the Gaza Strip. That was the case with the ship from Libya that, in an
    identical manner.

    INTERVIEWER: So you don’t expect any special complications here.

    FM LIBERMAN: We hope there won’t be any attempts to breach the blockade –
    namely to sail towards El Arish and then suddenly change course and try to
    breach the naval blockade on Gaza.

    , 23 August 2010

  • Greece reassures Arab allies over Israel ties

    Greece reassures Arab allies over Israel ties

    Freedom to Palestine
    A demonstrator holds a banner reading, 'Freedom to Palestine' during a protest outside the Greek parliament

    ATHENS — Greece moved Wednesday to reassure Arab allies over the strength of its friendship, following an improvement in ties with Israel after a landmark visit by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Improved Greek-Israeli ties were “for the good of Greece and all of the Middle East region… and do not exclude our close cooperation with the Arab world, and particularly our Palestinian friends,” Dimitris Droutsas, Greece’s Deputy Foreign Minister, said in an interview with radio station Flash.

    “Our rapprochement with Israel is not opposed to our traditional relationship of exceptional trust with the Arab world,” he said, adding that the improvement in ties had been discussed with “all our friends in the Arab world”.

    Meetings on Monday and Tuesday with the visiting Israeli prime minister were “very useful and entirely successful because we achieved the fixed objectives: deepening of relations and cooperation with Israel,” Droutsas said.

    “The cooling of relations between Turkey and Israel is not a reason for the political rapprochement with Israel,” Droutsas said, adding that Greece would look at all opportunities in foreign policy.

    The minister said bilateral discussions had focused on security, military cooperation and economic cooperation. He also reiterated the importance of Israeli tourists to the Greek economy.

    Netanyahu’s visit was the first by an Israeli head of government to Greece, which has traditionally been pro-Arab and did not recognise the Jewish state until 1991.

    The move to increase security and strategic cooperation comes as diplomatic ties between Israel and neighbouring Turkey have soured in the wake of an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May that left nine Turks dead.

  • Israel’s new Mediterranean best friend

    Israel’s new Mediterranean best friend

    ShowImage

    By JAY BUSHINSKY 
    08/19/2010 01:42

    Analysis: Can Greece replace Turkey?

    Can Greece replace Turkey as Israel’s foremost strategical ally in the Eastern Mediterranean region? To a certain extent, yes, but not entirely.

    The Greeks can provide air space for Israeli warplanes to practice for long-range combat missions.

    RELATED:
    Netanyahu meets Greek PM in Athens
    Greek PM’s visit signals warming ties

    (Since the withdrawal from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula three decades ago, Israel’s minuscule size precluded such activity here.) They also can increase their purchases of sophisticated military hardware made in Israel and expand the sharing of sensitive intelligence data.

    Greece already is a choice alternative for Israeli tourists, 400,000 of whom used to fill Turkey’s relatively low-cost and very comfortable resort hotels. It also offers ample opportunities for shoppers out to buy for less and to sightseers bent on exploring ancient sites like Athens’ Acropolis.

    Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had these considerations in mind when he embarked on his twoday official visit to Athens this week. His trip, the first by an incumbent Israeli prime minister, followed an inaugural visit to this country by his Greek counterpart, George Papandreou, a month ago.

    Netanyahu’s itinerary included a voyage aboard a Greek naval vessel made in Israel as well as meetings with senior military and diplomatic aides as well as with Papandreou himself.

    However, Greece has several limitations of which Netanyahu surely is aware.

    Its population is substantially smaller than Turkey’s: 12 million compared to 63 million. Hence, its purchasing power is substantially less.

    Historically, Greece has maintained a correct if not especially cordial diplomatic relationship with Israel.

    This is due to wide-ranging trade links with the Arab states as well as an active left wing that supports the Palestinian side of the Middle East conflict. The two pro- or neo-communist parties in Greece objected strenuously to Netanyahu’s arrival and managed to run up Palestinian flags over the Parthenon in advance of the Israeli leader’s tour there.

    On the other hand, the fact that the Greeks fought Nazi Germany and suffered from its brief occupation while the Jews were the primary victims also must be borne in mind as a coalescing factor. (Turkey, on the other hand, was neutral until the very end of World War II.) Politically, Greece has much less influence over the Arab states than Turkey.

    Like them, Turkey is a predominantly Muslim state, even though its constitution advocates secularism in governmental as well as social affairs. Ankara’s ruling Islamic party, headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan, even aspires to reassert the regional hegemony enjoyed by the former Ottoman Empire, which ruled in Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut, Jerusalem and Cairo – at least insofar as foreign policy is concerned.

    However, the Greeks have several advantages. Their country is a longtime member of the European Union, a multi-national body in which Israel is vitally interested and which it would be happy to join if given the opportunity. They also serve as discreet intermediaries for Israel’s unpublicized exports to the Arab states.

    There also is a profound Greek religious interest and involvement in the Holy Land.

    The Greek Orthodox church is one of Israel’s major landowners. Its possessions include churches and monasteries throughout the country (especially in Jerusalem, where its prelates granted the prestate Zionists permission to build the attractive Rehavia neighborhood on land adjacent to the Monastery of the Cross). And thousands of Greek Orthodox pilgrims flock to Israel annually, especially for Christmas and Easter on the dates designated by the Greek religious calendar.

    Actually, an Israeli swing away from Turkey toward Greece – because of Erdogan’s hostile rhetoric and behavior, especially since the May 31 seizure of a Gaza-bound flotilla by the Israeli navy and the death of nine Turkish passengers on board one of the ships – could backfire on Ankara.

    It already has undermined Turkey’s ability to act as a regional mediator (between Israel and Syria, for example), prompted grave warnings from the US that military equipment sought by the Turkish armed forces may be withheld and thrown Turkey out of step with the international effort to deter Iran from expanding its nuclear development program.

    Inevitably, Greece will act in its own best interests.

    And if these include the upgrading of military and business links with Israel (whose burgeoning economy also could help Athens solve its financial problems), so be it – unless Greek public opinion stands in the way.

    https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Israels-new-Mediterranean-best-friend

  • Israeli diplomats boycott Mossad spies over wage dispute

    Israeli diplomats boycott Mossad spies over wage dispute

    Israel’s foreign diplomats have refused to work with Mossad spies “anywhere in the world” after agents effectively broke a strike picket line.

    By Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem

    BenjaminNetanyahu
    Mr Netanyahu asked Mossad operatives to help with his trip after the industrial action meant he would have to cancel it Photo: EPA

    The rift was caused after the agency’s spies stepped in to help organise a trip for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, to Greece next week, after foreign diplomatic staff refused because of industrial action over pay.

    The strike, which was triggered by claims that diplomats get half the pay of defence ministry officials, has seen workers engineering a series of diplomatic faux pas. These include leaving the wife of Estonia’s president stranded at a restaurant outside Jerusalem and failing to role out a red carpet for the Russian foreign minister. They have also ditched suits in favour of jeans and sandals.

    Mr Netanyahu asked Mossad operatives to help with his trip after the industrial action meant he would have to cancel it.

    Hanan Goder, chairman of the foreign ministry’s diplomatic association, threatened to retaliate by withdrawing co-operation with Mossad.

    He said: “It is unacceptable that the prime minister would use another body, which is strictly in charge of security matters to break a strike.”

    He said: “Our mission abroad is to analyse political developments,” he said. “If we are excluded (from the Athens trip), they will face the consequences and we will not send them the reports we normally write.”

    Mr Goder said striking diplomats would “provide no aid to Mossad representatives” at embassies and consulates around the world except in matters of “life or death”.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/7944635/Israeli-diplomats-boycott-Mossad-spies-over-wage-dispute.html, 13 Aug 2010

  • CYPRUS: WHAT PEACE?

    CYPRUS: WHAT PEACE?

    by Rauf R.DENKTAS
    “Peace is not merely the absence of war, but presence of the rule
    of law, justice democracy and human rights” is the view of Mr. Andreas
    S.Kakouris who is accepted by the US Government as “the ambassador
    of the Republic of Cyprus to the United States”, and he laments “all of
    these elements are missing because of the continuing Turkish occupation
    of nearly 37 percent of the territory of the Republic of Cyprus and
    massive violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms, the direct
    result of an armed illegal invasion by Turkey in 1974;”(!)
    Since, Mr. Kakouris is championing “the rule of law, justice,
    democracy and human rights” it becomes relevant to query his
    credentials as “the ambassador of the Republic of Cyprus to the United
    Nations”. I am sure both Kakouris himself and the US authorities who
    have accepted him as “the ambassador of the Republic of Cyprus to the
    United states” know too well, that this appointment is flawed from a
    legal point of view because the consent and signature of the Turkish
    Cypriot Vice-President of the Republic of Cyprus, whose existence was
    denied by Archbishop Makarios back in 1963 when he declared that he
    no longer recognized a vice-president because all aspects of the 1960
    constitution which had established a partnership Republic between the
    Turkish and Greek Cypriots had been changed was rejected by the Greek
    Cypriot Administration (the usurpers of the title of the Republic since
    1963) as from that date. Turkish Cypriot partner community was offered
    minority status: They could only come back to the “Cypriot fold” if only
    they accepted minority rights in a Greek Cypriot Cyprus.
    In other words the usurpers of power in the island had put
    themselves in a position which could not be defended constitutionally,
    legally or morally. In fact the onslaught on Turkish Cypriots was for
    uniting the island with Greece the prohibition of which was the essence
    of the 1960 Agreements! In other words, long before Turkey came to
    Cyprus as a guarantor, in order to prevent the declaration of Enosis and
    the destruction of the Turkish Cypriot partner, it is the Greek Cypriot
    leaders and their government who defied the rule of law, justice,
    democracy and human rights, by destroying the partnership Republic in
    the name of Enosis.
    The fact that in this era of big-power politics, the rule of law and
    constitutionality of appointments can be easily and lamentably ignored,
    does not absolve Mr. Kakouris from his obligation to be truthful while
    projecting the Cyprus problem to the world.
    The title of his article to CNN on July 9, 2010 is “Cyprus is not at
    peace with Turkey” and naturally his story begins with the arrival of
    guarantor Turkey in July 1974. Forgetting that Turkey intervened in
    order to prevent Enosis and protect Turkish Cypriot partner from further
    atrocities. The amnesia of the ambassador “to the events between
    December 1963 and July 1974” is a national disease but even this does
    not give the ambassador a free license to lie to the world at large. This is
    not a wild accusation-anyone who conveniently forgets the beginning of
    a true story and tells his own version of it may be a good story-teller but
    his lies will soon be discovered by truly interested, independent
    observers. A cursory look at the Genocide Files by Gibbons, a four
    hundred plus page book and a look at the Akritas Plan will suffice to put
    Mr. Kakouris on the top-list of story-tellers in the world. But, after all,
    that is what he is paid for by his masters back at home, called “the
    Republic of Cyprus” which in fact is what is left of this partnership
    Republic after Greek Cypriot side destroyed it in the name of Enosis.
    The Turkish intervention in 1974 did not only prevent the
    declaration of Enosis, by the arch-murderer Nicos Sampson, but it also
    saved thousands of AKEL members from summary execution while it put
    an end to the colonel’s rule in Athens; that, 20th July 1974 was, in fact,
    the day Turkish Cypriots were saved from mass graves or from forced
    migration as in the case of the island of Crete in 1900’s is an undeniable
    fact in the light of Makarios’ statement that “if Turkey comes to save the
    Turkish Cypriots, Turkey will find no Turkish Cypriot to save”.
    By the time Turkish soldiers moved to the Famagusta area the
    unarmed civilians of Muratağa, Sandallar and Aloa, were killed and
    buried in mass graves, without sparing 16 day old babies, one to
    fourteen year old children and grand parents in their eighties or nineties.
    Until saved by Turkey, 40,000 of Turkish Cypriots, the inhabitants
    of 103 villages, who had fled to safer areas were forced to live in 3% of
    the area of Cyprus, denied all their constitutional and human rights from
    1963 to 1975. How can Mr. Kakouris talk about denial of Justice to his
    people, just because Turkey, acting under the Treaties of 1960 saved
    Turkish Cypriots from this fate and prevented the handing over of the
    island to Greece?
    “Peace is not merely the absence of war”, true! But in the case of
    Cyprus peace between the two ex-partners requires absolute honesty
    about the causes of the conflict and not story tellers trying to convince
    the world that a Greek Cyprus has been occupied by Turkey. What is
    needed is a permanent settlement, therefore putting an end to these lies
    and allowing the two ex-partners to live in security in their respective
    states while agreeing to cooperate on matters of mutual interest is the
    way to a permanent settlement. Good neighbourliness is the ultimate
    answer!
  • Europeans Love Turkish Tourists

    Europeans Love Turkish Tourists

    Monday, 19 July 2010

    Turkish tourists, who spend four times more than the average far eastern, Arabic or American tourists, have become the target of European tour operators.

    Speaking to the AA on Monday, spokesperson for the Tour Operators Platform, Cem Polatoglu, said that “in the past few years, the number of Turks going overseas for holidays has increased sharply”.

    Turkish tourists, in general, have a tendency to travel to Europe for holidays. European countries realized the importance of Turkish tourists, who spend four times more than far eastern, Arabic or American tourists, during the global economic crisis, Polatoglu said.

    Turkish tourists spend around 2,500 euros in weekly tours and around 1,200 euros during three-day tours, Polatoglu noted.

    In the past, Turkish tourists had to go through “torture” due to visa and related documents requirements. Those European countries which in the past did not want Turkish tourists are now chasing them. Every single day, tour operators from Spain, France, Germany, Italy and Greece are now coming at our door for Turkish tourists. I have been working in the tourism sector for the past 35 years and have not seen such excellent days during my career, Polatoglu stressed.

    According to Polatoglu, 1,750,000 Turks went to Europe for holidays during 2009.

    We expect a rise of 15 percent in the number of Turks going to Europe in 2010, Polatoglu said.

    Turkish tourists are Europe’s most favorite tourists, Polatoglu also said.

    A.A