By Ahmet Gencturk
ATHENS (AA) – Greece’s prime minister said Tuesday that Israel’s war in Gaza should end as quickly as possible.
Asked in an interview with CNN whether Israel should be pressured for a cease-fire in Gaza, Kyriakos Mitsotakis said: “I think they should (be). And we made it very, very clear to our Israeli friends that there were opportunities to get to a cease-fire. That is at least how we feel, and those opportunities were not taken.”
“And as long as you don’t have a cease-fire in Gaza, the hostages will not be released. You will have an unnecessary loss of life, compounding already on the humanitarian catastrophe that has taken place. And you will always give Hezbollah a reason to continue firing rockets into Israel. So it seems to me that it is also in Israel’s interest to get to a cease-fire as quickly as possible,” he added.
Noting that Greece is a very good friend of Israel, Mitsotakis said: “I think friends need to tell hard truths to friends. This is essentially what we have done, and we’ve also aligned our votes at the (UN) Security Council accordingly.”
He also drew attention to the far-reaching, multifaceted consequences of the ongoing war in Gaza, including economic ones, as a result of the attacks by Yemen’s Houthi group on shipping in the Red Sea, from which Greece was also directly and severely affected.
“This is not just a question for the Israelis or the Palestinians or the Lebanese to resolve. This is a regional conflict with global implications,” Mitsotakis said.
On relations with Türkiye, he stressed that his meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier in the day in New York, the sixth in the past year, “constitutes significant progress in the quality of the Greek-Turkish relationship.”
Underlining the importance of keeping channels of communication open with Türkiye, Mitsotakis added that major differences between the two NATO allies remain, including delimitation of maritime borders.
He noted, however, that cooperation between the two countries in addressing irregular migration is yielding positive results.
“We don’t want to leave it up to the smugglers to decide who enters the European Union or to put innocent lives at risk. So working with Türkiye on this topic is very important,” he added.