Greek PM on White House trip amid Turkey tension
Six months into his term, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis heads to his first White House visit on January 7 amidst tense relations with Nato ally and regional rival Turkey.
Athens is keen to enlist US investors for the growth spurt envisioned by the Greek conservative government -- but the visit comes as tensions escalate with Turkey over migration, energy exploration and territorial disputes.
“Greece and the United States are closer than ever,” Mitsotakis said in a December 29 interview with the weekly, To Vima.
“Greece is a reliable ally and I expect this to be confirmed with deeds, not just words,” he said.
The US has traditionally maintained a difficult balancing act between Greece and Turkey over the past six decades, with the Clinton administration actually stepping in to prevent hostilities over an uninhabited Aegean islet group in 1996.
But Trump has often struck a dissonant tone in his administration’s foreign policy, preferring to forge personal bonds even with the leaders of countries whose policies have on occasion been rebuked by the US State Department or Congress.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is one of them.
“It goes without saying that the political unpredictability of the American president creates a foggy scenery,” says Spyridon Litsas, professor of international relations at the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki.
“Mitsotakis travels to Washington in order to demonstrate to American political and economic elites that besides Turkish unreliability in the eastern Mediterranean, there is also Greece, a pivotal state for the balance of power in the region, a fundamental actor regarding the re-shaping of the regional energy map, and a fertile ground for investment,” Litsas told AFP.
Greek relations with Turkey are at their lowest point in decades.
In November, Erdogan signed a contentious maritime and military deal with the embattled UN-backed Libyan government.
Swiftly condemned by neighbouring states including Greece, Cyprus and Egypt, the move is seen by analysts as part of a Turkish strategy to avoid exclusion from the gas exploration scramble in the region.
Mitsotakis came to power in July after defeating leftist former PM Alexis Tsipras in national elections.
Trump in December signed the EastMed Act, an initiative to facilitate energy cooperation among the US, Israel, Greece and Cyprus.
On Thursday, Greece, Cyprus and Israel launched a major pipeline project -- also called EastMed -- designed to ship gas from the eastern Mediterranean to Europe.
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