Former foreign minister Nikos Kotzias on Monday evening underlined that he “neither blackmails nor can be blackmailed,” speaking at an event in the Cretan city of Irakleio organized by the think tank he heads up, and less than a week after abruptly resigning from the Cabinet.
“I had and have my disagreements with the (Tsipras) government. What should have I done? Resign? Everyone said politicians don’t resign; I resigned and am being maligned,” he told an audience at Irakleio’s chamber of commerce.
Kotzias, viewed as the architect of the landmark Prespa agreement on the Greek side, resigned a day after what was reported as a particularly acrimonious quarrel with Defense Minister Panos Kammenos at Wednesday’s closed-door Cabinet meeting.
Kammenos, the head of a small right-wing party that is the junior partner in the current “strange bedfellows” coalition government, and a vocal opponent of the accord remained in his post, whereas Kotzias resigned.
He also defended another surprise decision, announced during a handover ceremony on Saturday morning, to extend Greek territorial waters from six to 12 nautical miles – but only in the Ionian Sea.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras himself took over the foreign affairs portfolio from Kotzias.
“We enlarged the Greek state for the first time since 1948, that’s why the devotees of doing nothing are howling,” he said of the decision.
Much of the political opposition in the country decried the prospective initiative, saying a partial extension of territorial waters that excludes the Aegean would merely lend weight to Turkey’s long-standing claims of “exceptional conditions” in the latter.
Referring to the closely watched Prespa accord and relations with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYRoM), he asked whether “we want a partition of the neighboring country, as some want – and I’ll speak up when the time comes – or peaceful co-existence and development in the Balkans.
He also maintained that the recent vote in fYRoM’s Parliament included statements that the country’s official name will be changed to “North Macedonia”.
