We would like to thank the CPG(m-l) for inviting the M-L CPG to present its views on the topic of today's event.
Comrades and friends,
A dark atmosphere is enveloping the peoples of the world. Our planet, day by day, is turning into a stage of wars and brutal imperialist interventions. A stage of an increasingly acute military, economic and political struggle between the great capitalist powers, for the redistribution of their spheres of influence.
The change in the balance of power between the major imperialist powers in recent years has triggered a relentless conflict, which is escalating globally, in all sectors. The USA see China as the great "strategic competitor" and Russia as a "direct threat" to its global domination. In order to maintain their hegemony on the international scene they are intensifying their policy of war and aggression. This is precisely what Trump's colonialist-style aggressive rhetoric expresses.
From the South China Sea and Taiwan to the Middle East and Ukraine, flames of war are lit or threaten to be lit, while overt imperialist interference in the internal political developments of a number of countries is unstoppable.
A dangerous climate of escalation of military armaments and militarisation of the economy is developing. NATO's Secretary General has called on its member states to "shift to a war mentality" and further increase their military spending. The EU, with the Draghi report, has also ordered hundreds of billions to be given to European arms industries to increase their production.
The invasion of Russian imperialism, the intervention of the Western imperialist powers and their regime-puppet in Kiev have, for three years now, plunged Ukraine into disaster, with its people being bloodied on the altar of their competition. A major epicenter of war has developed in the centre of Europe, with serious consequences for the economy and social life of its countries.
The Zionist State of Israel is committing, since October 2023, a brutal genocide against the Palestinian people who are heroically fighting for their liberation and the attainment of a state. It has, moreover, launched a generalised war, seeking to promote the conquest project of the 'New Middle East' that Netanyahu has provocatively presented to the UN. With overt imperialist support, it has launched military attacks in Lebanon, Yemen and Syria, with the US, Britain and the EU gathering naval and air forces in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea and launching military raids.
To this scenery of war created by the wars in Ukraine and Palestine, the overthrow of the Assad government in Syria was added, at the end of 2024. An overthrow sought by the Western imperialist powers since 2011 with military interventions, incitement and organising of civil war, and economic blockade. They have succeeded in the new international and regional conditions that have emerged. With the overthrow of Assad they have opened the way to control this country too, they are flanking Iran, expanding their intervention in Middle East developments and at the same time creating new pressure on Russia to use it as a bargaining chip on the Ukraine front.
The devastated Syria has now also become the prey of Israel and Turkey, who are taking advantage of the opportunity to promote their expansionist plans. Israel, by destroying Syria's military power and infrastructure, has gone on to conquer new Syrian territories in the South, in addition to those it held in the Golan Heights. Turkey, from the north, is also expanding the Syrian territory it occupied and called the 'security zone'. Syria, following the overthrow of Assad, is facing the risk of being dismembered and transformed into a Middle East chaos zone.
All the above developments have a direct impact on the internal life of our country and on the critical foreign policy issues, especially those related to the Greek-Turkish problems and the Cyprus problem.
The government of New Democracy, moving along the coordinates defined by the interests of the local big bourgeoisie and the doctrine of subservience of "we belong to the West", is aligned with Western imperialist imperatives. By sending arms to Zelensky, it has made Greece a corridor of the US-NATO troops against Russia and, consequently, a target of Russian imperialism. It supports the Zionist state of Netanyahu in the genocide it is committing, participates in US-British and European military operations against the peoples of the Middle East and has placed Greece in the position of an enemy of the Palestinian people, contrary to the pro-Palestinian feelings of the Greek people. It has welcomed the fall of Assad in Syria and the rise of the jihadists to power, contributing to upheavals in the Middle East that will be ominous for Greece as well. It has turned our country into an anti-immigration bulwark of the EU, a country of repulsion and drowning of refugees and migrants. It is burdening the Greek people with the heavy economic and social consequences of wars and the purchase of large armaments.
The Mitsotakis government is dragging Greece on a dangerous course, very painful for its people, but also very worrying for national issues. Developments are creating a more unfavourable environment for the Greek-Turkish problems and the Cyprus problem. Turkey is stepping up its pressure on these issues. Having emerged, in the course of the past years, as a strong regional power with footholds and influence ranging from Azerbaijan and the Balkans to the Middle East and Africa, sliding among the major imperialist powers, it is vigorously developing its expansionist plan for the "Blue Homeland" and Erdogan's "borders of the heart" which it keeps repeating. Thus, in effect, raising the issue of changing the borders between Greece and Turkey, which have been defined by the Treaty of Lausanne for a century. It unfolds the full range of its claims against Greek sovereign rights. From those concerning the extent of the Aegean Sea, the continental shelf and the EEZ to the sovereignty over dozens of Greek islands and islets. And it not only puts them forcefully on the diplomatic table of the Greek-Turkish discussions, but also takes practical steps to promote them through constant violations of Greek sovereign rights in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, through the use of military force and the creation of fait accompli, such as the Turkish-Libyan Memorandum.
The same tactics of gross violation of sovereign rights by exercising military threats are also being promoted in Cyprus. It has reached the point, today, of openly claiming as a "solution" to the Cyprus problem the definitive partition of the island, while at the same time violating the maritime sovereign rights of the Republic of Cyprus.
Turkey, using military forces it controls inside Syria, has been instrumental in the overthrow of Assad and is now attempting to implement a "maritime jurisdiction" agreement with the jihadist administration, at the expense of the maritime sovereign rights of Cyprus and Greece.
Against this expansionist policy, the Mitsotakis government is responding with the policy of "calm waters". A policy that leads Greece to behave as a passive spectator and commentator of Turkish provocations, while behind the scenes, in the context of the Greek-Turkish dialogue, he discusses concessions on national sovereign rights and an appeal to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, leaving the "settlement" of the Greek-Turkish crisis to its American and European allies. This is a dangerous policy that leads Greek sovereign rights directly to the path of docility, locking the fate of Greece's sovereign rights into the imperialist interests of the US, the EU and NATO.
It is of great importance to see that, today, the Greek-Turkish confrontation is evolving in conditions of greater intensity of imperialist antagonisms, with the bourgeoisie of a strengthened Turkey projecting its expansionist policy more aggressively, and the Greek bourgeoisie retreating in the face of the intensity of Turkish pressure, turning Greece into a puppet of the imperialist policy of the USA, the EU and NATO, turning it into their camp and base, and into a submissive buyer of costly armaments, which the Greek people pay dearly for and which are putting our already bankrupt country into debt.
The government's policy of concessions, appeasement and the placing of the solution of the Greek-Turkish problems on the imperialist powers is complemented by adventurous "initiatives" to "counteract" Turkish pressures, such as the "strategic alliance" with the states of the American arc in the Mediterranean, Israel and Egypt, which make Greece a close partner of the executioner of the Palestinian people Netanyahu and the military dictator of Egypt Sisi and involve Greece in the pro-war plans of the US and Israel in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East.
The policy of subservience, nationalism and of entrusting the solution of the Greek-Turkish problems to the imperialist powers has been applied for decades by the Greek governments. It has led to a deadlock and will continue to lead to new dangerous impasses and tensions in Greek-Turkish relations, because imperialist policy, whether in the form of arbitration or "equal distances", aims at fostering the antagonisms of the two countries - with the only limit being the avoidance of a rift in the south-eastern wing of NATO - in order to maintain imperialist control.
The spirit of nationalism, the ideology that aims to arouse the hatred of one people against the other and to cultivate the perception of the domination of one state over the other, guides the policy of the ruling classes in Turkey and Greece. The armed invasion of Cyprus by Turkish troops in 1974 and the continuation to this day of the Turkish occupation of over 40% of the island shows what nationalist and chauvinist hysteria can lead to.
In the face of this constantly deteriorating global situation for the peoples, the strengthening of the anti-war, anti-imperialist movement is a great and urgent necessity:
In defence of peace.
For the repulsion of imperialist interventions, for the support of liberation struggles, such as the heroic struggle of the Palestinian people.
To strengthen the struggles against imperialist exploitation and oppression, but also against the policy of dependence and subjugation.
The anti-war, anti-imperialist movement, in order to develop, must be based on correct answers and correct demands on the relevant, pressing issues of wars and imperialist interventions, threats to sovereign rights, the struggle for national independence, solidarity with the victims of imperialist aggression.
It must confront the war in Ukraine as a product of the interventions of US imperialism, the European imperialist powers and Russian imperialism and mobilise against them, setting the goal of getting all the imperialist powers out of Ukraine, to overthrow the Ukrainian puppet government of the Western imperialists, to crush the fascist forces in Ukraine and to support the struggle of the Ukrainian people for the national independence, territorial sovereignty and integrity of their country.
It must stand by the side of the unconquerable Palestinian people in their unrelenting struggle against the Zionist occupiers to stop their genocide and gain a homeland and freedom.
It must denounce the developments in Syria as the result of a long-standing imperialist intervention and the expansionist ambitions of Israel and Turkey, which is plunging the Syrian people and the Middle East in general into a new destructive vortex.
It must strengthen its support for the great victims of imperialist wars and interventions, and strengthen its solidarity with refugees and migrants.
The anti-war, anti-imperialist movement of our country must strengthen its struggle against Greece's involvement in the war in Ukraine, against the US-NATO aggressive plans in the Middle East and the support of the New Democracy government to the Zionist brutality.
It must fight for the just resolution of the Greek-Turkish problems and the Cyprus problem, for a common struggle of the peoples of Greece, Cyprus and Turkey against the interventions of the imperialist powers, against the policies of national subordination and nationalism, condemning every violation, every threat against sovereign rights, every change of borders. To defend the territorial integrity of our country in the event of an attack by Turkey and to oppose any adventurist attack that may be launched by Greece against Turkey. To support the removal of all occupying troops and foreign bases from Cyprus. To fight for the prevention of any dichotomous solution, for a united and independent Cyprus.
The struggle of the anti-war, anti-imperialist movement of our country must have as its flag the demands for the exit of Greece from NATO and the EU, for the expulsion of the American bases. It is intertwined with the struggle for national independence. Because in our country we cannot talk about the struggle against imperialism and war without putting up and fighting against the politics of dependence and subordination.
