Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis commended the ongoing efforts of rescue workers at the earthquake-stricken regions in Türkiye, in a tweet posted in Turkish on Tuesday evening (Greece time).
“Images that fill us with pain are followed by images that fill us with hope: only respect for the superhuman efforts of rescue teams,” the Greek PM said, adding “Greeks and Turks side by side, struggling together to save lives. We thank them for what they are doing.”
Currently, a Greek disaster management unit (EMAK) is operating in Türkiye following the fatal earthquakes, it includes 21 rescuers, five doctors and paramedics, and two search-and-rescue dogs.
In an interview with CNN regarding the devastating earthquakes that have so far claimed the lives of over 7,000 people, Mr Mitsotakis said that “Greece has considerable experience in managing earthquakes and knows that time is of vital essence under such critical times, that is why it sent rescue teams to Türkiye as soon as possible”.
When asked about speaking with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the phone on Tuesday, following several months of diplomatic tension, Mr Mitsotakis said that during such times of crises:
“the fact remains that Greece and Türkiye are neighbors and should help each other,”
mentioning previous missions of help the two countries have sent to each other during earthquakes, and said that
“both countries have to deal with similar crises like climate change and earthquakes. The Greek and Turkish peoples are friends. We may have our political differences, but at the end of the day we have nothing to fight about with the Turkish people”.
Mr Mitsotakis further commented on the video images of two rescuers, a Greek and a Turk, who together saved a 7-year-old girl in Hatay, in southwestern Türkiye.
“These are very powerful images that, at the end of the day, build bridges between our peoples,” he noted.
Mr Mitsotakis also stressed that the situation in Syria is even more complicated because. fundamentally, there is no official state representative; therefore help must go through international organisations. When the Special European Council meets on Thursday and Friday, he said, discussion will focus on a European coordination to ensure that the help sent will arrive wherever there is the greatest need.
“Any such help does not mean a particular regime is diplomatically recognised – the issue is to rescue people in horrific conditions who desperately need our help. There is no assurance that Syrian President Bashar Assad will allow the safe passage of such help,” the Prime Minister added.
“No country is in the position to reach such resolutions by itself, that is why I believe it is important for these negotiations to be carried out through the United Nations or the European Union, in a collective use of funding at a European level. Such negotiations could not be safely carried out at a bilateral level,” he concluded.
Currently, there is no communication with Damascus and the help Greece is providing is focused on Türkiye.