In a week where the 48th anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic Uprising against the Greek Junta Dictatorship was celebrated, a disturbing announcement was made by Turkey’s Minister of Defense, Hulusi Akar. Turkey’s Defense Minister, when defending Turkey’s proposed retrofitting and capability improvement of their armed forces, name-checked Alexis Tsipras and his party stating that they agree with Ankara.

If you read the statement and you were in stunned disbelief, so was I. This is not the first time that Tsipras himself or his party has played directly into the hands of Ankara either from deliberate political miscalculation or staggering idiocy coupled with gross incompetence. Previously, when Alexis Tsipras was the Prime Minister of Greece he argued that Greece’s borders should not be secured and that illegal migration by itself does not even exist, that people should move freely through Greece’s borders. Turkey benefited by being able to funnel refugees and illegal migrants through Greece, which strained the internal system of not just Greece, but of many countries in the EU as a consequence when they then filtered out of Greece.

Additionally, Tsipras cozied up to China and sold off many critical state assets to a regime that has a horrendous human rights track record, something that Turkey knows a thing or two about. Turkey, with the latest comments emanating from SYRIZA, can weaponize issues that they feel strongly about and rightfully say that the second largest political party in Hellenic Parliament supports their positions. Such a situation undermines Greece’s national security and also undermines its ability to conduct meaningful diplomacy since countries will begin to see that Greece’s word is on shaky ground because we cannot even agree amongst ourselves on what to disagree on.

Akar’s comments, underscoring SYRIZA’s careless rhetoric, revealed what we have all known for months on end: the polls for Tsipras are devastating, Greece’s image abroad is changing on daily basis towards a more positive direction, and Greece has its greatest chance of returning the Parthenon Marbles home.

Tsipras wants to be prime minister again and it is truly sad to say that it is that his motivation is that simple – his ambition makes him willing to undermine national security to damage the government. Such behavior mirrors progressives in the United States who try to torpedo bills that their own party puts forth, thereby confusing the electorate and making it seem like Democratic Party is not unified and weak – simply so that they may get their own way. What the progressives will continue to accomplish as they did on election day 2020, is that they will get more Republicans elected. The short-sighted approaches for political gain whilst playing games with the lives of real people needs to end on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.