Exploratory talks with Turkey a step in the right direction, PM Mitsotakis says in UN address

Migration, climate change, the pandemic, and Greece’s relations with Turkey were among the issues raised by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in a pre-recorded video address to the 75th United Nations General Assembly on Friday, where he analyzed the main challenges facing the global community “that demand action today, not discussion tomorrow.”
Despite the current difficult circumstances, he added, “we are more united than ever, more connected through the power of innovation, sharing an unprecedented determination to work together to improve the global family of our nations.” He noted the need for the global community to do more to tackle the causes of migration, however, such as poverty, privation, economic uncertainty, exploitation, violence, and war.
The prime minister also referred to the great changes wrought by the pandemic: “Since the last time we met, the world has changed dramatically. The Covid-19 pandemic has raised questions regarding globalization…questions that we never imagined we will have to face nor yet to answer. How do we live, how do we work, how do we interact…”
He noted that the pandemic had created a “new normality” of masks and minimal physical contact but that this should not be allowed to dictate a new world since digital technology allowed the world to be more connected than ever.
“If, as now seems possible, we can develop complex vaccines in just one year or maybe 18 months, why can we not work together to solve some of the other great global challenges of our time,” he said. “If COVID has taught us anything, it is that we do not have the luxury to wait for the next crisis before we take preventative action,” he added.
Mitsotakis noted the need to take action to ward off climate change, protect biodiversity and public health, and to tackle the causes of migration, noting that this finally amounted to action for the viability of humanity.
In the midst of multiple crises and uncertainty, compounded by troubled relations between states that threatened security and multilateral cooperation, the prime minister cited Greece’s efficient response to the pandemic, despite a health system weakened by decade-long austerity, as “proof that there is a way to overcome this uncertainty”.
“We proved that flexibility, adaptability, and new technology can make people stronger and achieve results that at one time seemed impossible,” he said. “We gave priority to knowledge, to the experts, using the facts and the data instead of relying on ideology, exploiting the best that innovation and technology had to offer and putting reliable experts at the center of decision-making and our communication. And it worked,” Mitsotakis said.
Defying all expectations, Greece had been extraordinarily successful in handling the first wave of the pandemic, he added, expressing confidence that it will similarly succeed in tackling the second wave as well.
Mitsotakis also referred to the problems caused by Turkey, saying that Turkey’s action undermined international law and threatened security and stability in the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as for all EU member-states. The EU has made it absolutely clear that unilateral actions will not go unanswered when they threaten the sovereign rights of its member states, he added.
He appeared hopeful, however, that a way to de-escalate tension will be found, saying that the start of exploratory contacts recently agreed and announced by the two sides were a step in the right direction. “If, finally, we continue to be unable to agree, then we must trust in the wisdom of the International Court at The Hague,” Mitsotakis said.