The Alternate Minister of National Defence Dimitris Vitsas, at an interview he gave today, Monday May 9 2016 to the TV programme “Proini Zoni” at the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, he mentioned the following:

“During the last days, we have created 4,000 new hosting posts, which are near Idomeni. What we are trying to do currently is to convince these people that their rights are within the host facilities. There, they can submit applications for asylum, whereas at Idomeni they did not have such rights.

Of course, they must understand that they are accommodated in our country. Based on the Geneva Convention, they must be subject to the laws of the country. A practice of suppression would not be useful but dangerous; therefore, we shall use all possible ways so as to convince them that they should retreat to other spots.

There is an important reduction of refugees to the areas of Elliniko and Idomeni. Almost 2,000 refugees and migrants have left Idomeni and almost 1,000 have left Elliniko. Piraeus has not been fully evacuated yet, due to the big success in Skaramangas. New people have arrived at Piraeus, who wanted to go to Skaramangas. Today, almost 800 refugees and migrants will be moved to the third part of the refugee camp of Eleonas and, until the end of the week, two more spaces will accommodate almost 1,000 more refugees.

Of course, this does not end here, as we have several more issues. We have the refugee camps of Elliniko, Koutsohero at Larissa and Katsikas at Ioannina, which need to be reorganised. We will need a second stage of more solid accommodation infrastructures; in this context I had discussions with the Head of the region of the Peloponnese and his staff, and I am now waiting for them to indicate the appropriate spots.

The Geneva Convention, since 1951, provides for certain rights for the refugees. Among them – after having submitted an application for asylum and being granted asylum – is the refugee travel document, the special employment authorisation document, the special relation with education. Until this situation is normalised and there is peace in Syria, for the time until they return to their homes or they are relocated to other European countries, naturally some will stay in Greece, these rights will exist.

In the agreement between EU and Turkey, as far as the asylum is concerned, a provision was made for EU countries to send approximately 400 specialists. Until now, 50% of them have arrived. This has improved the procedure of examining the requests for asylum. The initial planning was for 200-400 requests per day.

There is an agreement between EU and turkey which has been kept. The flows are reduced, while on June 1st we shall examine the level we have reached after this agreement. Currently, the key issue is to allow the relocation from Turkey and Greece to European countries, and to quickly complete the procedures for asylum seekers, so that the ones who want to return home can do it in a safe and lawful way.

It wasn’t long ago since, from the Turkish side, we had more violations than usual. We face them with sobriety, decisiveness and promptness, in the usual way and using the diplomatic ways. What we want to point out to international fora, as well as to the pertinent people, is that the more violations we have, the more the risk of an accident increases. We make the most of NATO’s presence in the Aegean and NATO’s political part is also mobilized.

NATO should complete this mission, namely to complete this mission and extend it to the Southern Aegean; it performs observations, not deterrence, nor search and rescue. It just provides information, it is a strengthening factor, yet NATO’s presence will not be eternal or determining.

We leave at a fairly troubled area. For this reason, we should work so as to shape constants. Greece’s position, within international context and due to our behavior, has improved.  

For Greece there are no ‘gray zones’, nor are they tolerable. The usual practice is applied, taking into consideration certain phenomena within Turkey’s political life, which are due to the crisis. Greece has no claims, yet clearly knows what belongs to her”.