Turkey is an aggressive neighbor, Greek PM tells Europeans in Davos

Greece's Prime Ministers Alexis Tsipras gestures as he speaks during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland January 24, 2018.

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) – Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Wednesday his European partners couldn’t always appreciate the challenges of living with an ‘aggressive’ neighbor such as Turkey, remarks reflecting the strained ties between the two NATO partners.

Tsipras was speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in a discussion about stabilizing the Mediterranean and addressing the migration crisis.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants crossed from Turkey into Greece and further into the European Union at the height of the migration crisis in 2015. It coincided with Greece negotiating its third financial bailout from international creditors to stave off bankruptcy.

Tsipras, who came to power in early 2015, said he took the helm at a very difficult time for Greece which didn’t only have to grapple with its worst debt crisis and the refugee crisis, but also an “aggressive neighbor, sometimes unpredictable with an aggressive military activity in the Aegean,” Tsipras said.

NATO partners Greece and Turkey have a long history of differences that have outlived the Cold War, ranging from jousting over airspace in the Aegean Sea to minority rights and the ethnically split island of Cyprus.

The two now cooperate in a deal brokered between Ankara and the European Union in March 2016 aimed at slowing migrant flows. Tsipras described the deal, which has been criticized by human rights groups, as ‘a difficult but necessary agreement’.

Tsipras said that implementing the agreement, making sure that international laws were not being violated as Greece has been processing thousands of asylum requests, and ensuring that national interests were also safeguarded, was important.

“At the same time we have to take a decision on what we are going to do with this aggressive behavior of Turkey,” he said in response to an observation that Turkey could change its mind on the migration deal at any time.

“For somebody (sic), it is very easy to be also aggressive if they are living in Luxembourg or Netherlands, because their neighbors are Belgium and Luxembourg, and not Turkey. But it’s not so easy for us.”

(Reporting By Michele Kambas and Renee Maltezou, Writing by Michele Kambas, Editing by William Maclean)

Putin says Russia must strengthen as ‘aggressive’ NATO approaches

Russian President Putin

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia must boost its combat readiness in response to NATO’s “aggressive actions” near Russia’s borders, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.

Addressing parliament on the 75th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union, Putin berated the West for being unwilling to build “a modern, non-bloc collective security system” with Russia.

“Russia is open to discuss this crucial issue and has more than once shown its readiness for dialogue,” he said. “But, just as it happened on the eve of World War Two, we do not see a positive reaction in response.”

“On the contrary, NATO is strengthening its aggressive rhetoric and its aggressive actions near our borders. In these conditions, we are duty-bound to pay special attention to solving the task of strengthening the combat readiness of our country.”

The U.S.-led military alliance is increasing its defenses in Poland and the three Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as part of a wider deterrent that it hopes will discourage Russia from any repetition of its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014.

Russia sees NATO’s deterrence plans as hostile.

Drawing historic parallels with the 1930s, Putin said humanity now faced a danger of failing to withstand the fast-spreading threat of terrorism, just as it once failed to unite against the rising power of Nazi Germany.

“The world community did not show enough vigilance, will and consolidation to prevent that war and save millions of lives,” Putin said.

“What kind of a lesson is still needed today to discard old and frayed ideological disagreements and geopolitical games and to unite in the fight against international terrorism?”

(Reporting by Denis Pinchuk; Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Maria Kiselyova and Richard Balmforth)