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Statements and Declarations
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07.11.04: FYROM, Cyprus, Turkey - The complete statement
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Recent photo (Guy Wagner)
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The surprise US gesture to Skopje, with its anti-Greek spearhead, should be understood as a “warning bell” that calls us to unity, vigilance and reflection.
It is clear that Greece, the Greeks, the entire Hellenism are entering a very difficult, critical and dangerous period that leaves no margins for clashes of a petty political nature. Because only united and determinate around the common acceptance of a national policy, we can face the difficulties that wait for us and be victorious.
Please allow me to expose my opinion on some immediate problems.
1st: It will be necessary to show to the people of Skopje and Albania that their interests rest first of all on good relations with our country. The reality already proves it: one has just to see the contribution of Greece to the economic development of these countries.
With regard to Skopje, it will be necessary to underline, I think, that the element which makes us rise and be like one man against the name "Republic of Macedonia", is naturally not with the words but with what some factions visibly signal behind these words, namely the irredentist claims against our country's territorial integrity.
This is something that unfortunately was not made sufficiently known, with the well-known results. Today, it is therefore time to resoundingly shout in every direction, and chiefly to Skopje itself, so that there will be no delusion regarding our future stance -- which in every instance will be what it always has been whenever our national integrity has faced dangers.
2nd: During the new difficult historical time, our principal allies must be Europe, the Arab World, Russia and Balkans. Things which go from themselves for others, whose significance however must be analyzed, so that the people and the political world are gathered behind these policies by a common acceptance, independently of the particular reserves of one or the other. We must look clearly at the present and future interrelation between the powers, where it appears that our country, and Cyprus with it, are the target of the superpower. Naturally, nobody can foresee what the other awaits from us. But what we can and must do, is, as I said, on one hand, to be united and resolute and, on the other, to lean on good and strong alliances.
3rd: Regarding Turkey, I continue to believe that Turkey’s domestic problems have not been definitively resolved. And it is natural that there are powerful forces, which do not agree with the policy of peaceful relations with Greece and are determined to destroy them. One of their principal weapons is –- as it seems –- the tension in the Aegean Sea and the continuous provocations, with the hope of a "hot" implication that would make fly into pieces the efforts of the overwhelming majority of the Greeks and the Turks: the consequences would be unforeseeable. So, the peaceful coexistence between the two people is the only valid way. Any other orientation would be really catastrophic.
Athens 7.11.2004
Mikis Theodorakis
English translation: © Guy Wagner
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