Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras noted that Putin’s visit comes just days after Athens reached a deal with eurozone bailout creditors to continue rescue loan payouts, under a deal that expands power of a state privatization committee.
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During a visit to Greece meant to fix ties with the EU, Vladimir Putin said that Russian Federation has “no choice” but to target Romania, which has recently opened a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation missile defense base, and Poland, which plans to do so within two years.
“The Greek government is doing everything to launch growth and we believe growth will include Russia”, Velanis said.
Russian Federation and Greece are both largely Orthodox Christian countries and share close religious ties.
“We’ve been repeating like a mantra that we will be forced to respond somehow to your moves to undermine global security…”
“We’re here to support the Russian gay community”.
The Russian leader expressed his gratitude to the Greek Church and the representatives of the monastery and praised the place as “a truly humanitarian place with a spiritual mission”.
But he insisted that Russian Federation was not taking the first step, only responding to moves by Washington.
On his first trip to a European Union country this year, Putin sharply criticized western policy toward Moscow and called a newly-expanded USA missile defense system a threat to his country’s security.
The ballistic missile defense tracking radar is in Turkey, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation command-and-control center is in Germany and four U.S. Aegis ballistic missile defense ships have been homeported in Rota, Spain.
Putin said: “As far as Crimea is concerned, we consider this question is closed forever”. On Saturday, he will join celebrations for the 1,000th anniversary of the Russian presence at the ancient monastic community of Mount Athos in northern Greece, one of Orthodox Christianity’s holiest sites. “We will wait until Poland takes certain action. This is a historical decision of the people living in Crimea, and Russian Federation will not hold any discussion on the matter”. Hailed by TASS as “the biggest global event in Russia in 2016”, the Russia-ASEAN summit was aimed directly at China’s increasing economic and strategic dominance in Southeast Asia, and most astonishingly, siding unequivocally with the ASEAN nations against China’s position in the heated South China Sea disputes.
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The two sides, according to Greek government sources, are also to examine the upgrading of political dialogue on worldwide and regional developments, EU-Russia and NATO-Russia relations, as well as stronger cooperation on culture, education, science and technology.
