SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader Sokratis Famellos met on Friday with Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis. "In the context of my briefing by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, I again stated  SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance's view on foreign policy issues. We live in difficult times, with major geopolitical upheavals, and that is why we must return to the basic values of democratic societies. And these are respect for and priority for peace, international law and the well-being of societies, along with human and democratic rights," Famellos said afterwards.
"This means that we need a strong homeland, which has its own proactive and multifactorial foreign policy, but also a strong Europe that has a unified plan for both security and foreign policy, where social cohesion is not questioned and that solutions for peace and cooperation are promoted worldwide," he noted.
"With respect to the discussion of the Cyprus issue, I reiterated SYRIZA's proposal...that as a country we must immediately promote our view regarding a bizonal-bicommunal federation, which must include the withdrawal of all troops and an end to the occupation that exists on Cyprus for the last 50 years," Famellos said. He stressed that the current situation on Cyprus cannot continue for another 50 years and noted that the discussion held earlier in the week "opens up a window of opportunity that must be seized immediately, in the summer, so that there are real steps in continuing the Crans Montana talks."
On European issues, Famellos said they had discussed the Rearm Europe initiative and that he had raised "serious questions about whether this initiative will challenge social cohesion, regional development and Europe's resources - that is, the well-being of citizens." He also queried its future relationship with the Greek defence industry and pointed to a need to clarify that the defence of Europe's borders must concern all borders, including those of Greece, which are European borders, and pointed out that there were serious questions about what Turkiye's role will be in this discussion.