Erdogan writes off Greece’s Mitsotakis, maintains stance on NATO expansion
Enraged by the Greek premier’s remarks to US Congress against arms sales to Turkey, Erdogan denounces Greece, along with Sweden and Finland, for supporting terrorism.
Opening up a new battlefront with NATO allies, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced late Monday that he had “written off” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for lobbying the US Congress against military sales to Turkey.
The president’s criticism of Greece, another NATO ally, comes as Erdogan and his political ally Devlet Bahceli maintain Ankara’s objections to NATO accession of Sweden and Finland. Following Erdogan’s phone conversation with his Finnish and Swedish counterparts over the weekend, two delegations, headed by Swedish State Secretary Oscar Stenstrom and Finnish State Secretary Jukka Salovaara, will hold talks in Ankara on Wednesday. The Turkish side will be chaired by Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal and Ibrahim Kalin, the presidential spokesman and Turkey’s de facto national security adviser.
