AKEL GS: former Greek Foreign Minister’s references baseless
Statement by the General Secretary of AKEL A.Kyprianou
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 5th January 2021, Nicosia
I regret that I am forced to reply publicly to Mr. Nikos Kotzias with regards the references he made in his recent book, that supposedly I, accompanied by Mr. Katroungalos, in January 2017 asked the then Prime Minister of Greece Mr. A. Tsipras to remove him from his post and that I was supposedly behaving as a co-governor of Greece. The latter reference in particular is an insult to Mr. Kotzias himself as a member of the Government he served and to A. Tsipras who entrusted him with the critical position of Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Mr. Kotzias knows very well what was said in the discussions between us, but also in our discussions with the then Prime Minister, in which other AKEL leading members and the then leading official of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mr. Vangelis Kalpadakis were always present. He knows very well that I never acted as a co-governor.
As written words remain, I must point out that the gossip that was conveyed to him and which naively Mr. Kotzias included in his book, is baseless. First of all, because in 2017 I traveled to Geneva, Brussels, Yalta, Cuba, Moscow, London and so on. So I did not go to Athens in January 2017. As far as Mr. Katroungalos is concerned, I met him for the first time since his appointment as Minister of Foreign Affairs. So I wonder why Mr. Kotzias is referring to something that is not true.
I sincerely regret that to serve the promotion of a book, Mr. Kotzias chooses to open fronts and create a crisis, for the first time in history, in AKEL’s long-standing good relations both with the Greek political forces and with him, as I at least considered. I hope that even belatedly he understands the damage being done.
