Editorial: One-way street

In an article published exclusively by Ta Nea, Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias outlines the country’s foreign policy and the role that Greece seeks in international affairs.

The government wants Greece to be outward looking and to press the restart button in Greek-Turkish relations.

Dendias says Greece must be self assured and not insecure in order to build sound relations with its Balkan partners.

In this manner Greece can lead the effort to bring along its Balkan partners on an outward-looking path of self-confidence.

Certainly, this is not an easy task. Battered by last year’s recession, Turkey remains in a tough economic situation with double-digit inflation and unemployment.

Albania is often embattled by nationalist fervour while the Prespa Accord between Greece and North Macedonia is also fraught with problems.

The Balkans and the Southeastern Mediterranean remain in tumult. New problems are piling upon older ones.

Yet the path of cooperation is a one-way street. As a mature European democracy Greece must become an example and restart its relations with less mature Balkan democracies and with an authoritarian Turkish democracy.
Greece must become a country that is both outward-looking and self-confident.