“They create the right climate to move on to the next move. We cannot know what it will be, it will not be rhetoric but the next move, it will be something in practice”
This was the assessment of Professor of International Law, Deputy Minister of Education Angelos Syrigos, as he expressed it speaking on Proto Program 91.6 and 105.8 and on the show “Morning Routes on Proto” with Maria Georgiou and Vassilis Adamopoulos, regarding what Ankara is preparing, increasing the tension more and more.
“My assessment is that the Turks want to avoid being the ones to fire the first shot but are creating all the conditions to push us to fire the first rifle. It is a game that they have been preparing for many years and are moving forward. At the same time they are watching to see how the international community reacts, they have not yet decided when to move because they are also worried about what they are seeing. In other words, they see an America which traditionally maintains a neutral stance, which yesterday came out and explicitly said that the islands of the Aegean are beyond question, they see Europe, which is reacting. But they are clearly preparing the ground for something else, we don’t know what that is,” added Mr. Syrigos. Asked if the next move will be in the field, Mr Syrigos replied “not necessarily, but all the indications are pointing towards that”.
The escalation of tension by Tayyip Erdoğan is due, according to Mr. Syrigos, both to the internal developments in the neighbor and to the field of its foreign policy. As far as Turkey’s domestic front is concerned, the escalation is related to the upcoming elections and opinion polls that show the coalition in which the Turkish President participates with Mr. Bahtceli by more than 20% from his opponents.
Externally, Mr. Syrigos continued, he is trying to achieve other things, such as the issue of upgrading the F16s and the issue of restoring his relations with the US.
“My assessment is that if Erdogan sees that he is losing the election beyond any doubt, he will do everything he can to avoid it. Because he knows that he is in danger of being brought before the courts, before a situation in which he will probably end up in prison and his family will probably lose the huge fortune they have accumulated over the years. So he will do everything he can to avoid it,” said Mr. Syrigos.
Nowhere else in the world is the image of Greek universities in certain fields
Speaking about yesterday’s large-scale intervention by the police forces at the Zografou Campus, Mr. Syrigos described a situation which, as he said, took shape in the previous decade in this particular student residence where, over the years, abusive elements imposed their own will.
“When you make a space that’s outlawed, not illegal, outlawed, it’s normal to end up like this. By placing a series of obstacles for the police to operate within these spaces we ended up having a situation in which the other person could enter and do whatever they want, which is what we saw in the student residence. This particular operation by the police is the third in a row in the same student residence. This time it is established why the findings the other times were few, it seems that there was inside information that informed the police operation and for this reason they could not find what they wanted,” said Mr. Syrigos.
Now the student residences are under the supervision of the university police, added the Deputy Minister. “The issue is that what is happening at the Zografou university campus is not an image of the university. It does not exist anywhere in the world,” he emphasized.
The specific student residence, based on the Ministry’s planning, will be closed on December 31 to proceed with its reconstruction, Mr. Syrigos said, with a total cost of 45 million euros, and then it will be returned to the students with all the rules and regulations. the conditions. “With turnstiles so that only those who have the right to enter, with security, with the possibility when the doorman sees something strange to call the police” he added.
“Unfortunately, the image presented by Greek universities in certain fields does not exist anywhere in the world. Even the discussion that is taking place in Greece about the so-called asylum, the asylum is an asylum of academic freedom, it is not an asylum that the police do not enter” concluded Mr. Syrigos.
