ATHENS – Crete plays a key role in the exercise of the new, active foreign policy adopted by Greece after the summer of 2019, Deputy Minister of National Defence Nikos Hardalias said late on Thursday at an event organised by the Rotary Club of Chania, Crete.

“The era of inaction, with slogans such as ‘we concede nothing, claim nothing’ or ‘we will risk it’, as well as phobic syndromes, are firmly in the past,” he added.

The existence of Crete, he pointed out, “enables Greece to extend its sovereignty and influence hundreds of kilometers away from the mainland, since Crete, sealing off the Aegean from the south, is at the centre of all the sea routes that horizontally cross the Mediterranean, from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Levantine Sea, but also vertically, from the Straits of the Bosphorus to the shores of North Africa.”

“Without any degree of exaggeration, no one can envisage conducting serious aeronautical operations in the Eastern Mediterranean, without taking Crete into account,” he added.

Purely geographically, he underlined, “Crete plays a pivotal role in the exercise of the new, active foreign policy adopted by Greece after the summer of 2019”.

He clarified that the Ministry of National Defence participates “in this effort actively, building the strongest Armed Forces in modern Greek history”.