ATHENS – NATO’s refusal to intervene over provocations and US President Joe Biden’s push to sell Turkey more F-16’s and upgrade its Air Force are just playing into the hands President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Greece’s PASOK party leader Nikos Androulakis said.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has even praised Turkey as a “valuable ally” despite Erdogan buying Russian-made S-400 missile defense systems that undermine the alliance and could be used against Greece in a conflict.

And Biden admitted essentially succumbing to Erdogan’s near-blackmail like insistence on getting the fighter jets in return for not blocking the entry of Sweden and Finland to NATO.

With elections coming in the spring, Androulakis – also a Member of the European Parliament – has doubled the popularity of the center-left movement that incorporates members of the KINAL party in a merger.

Speaking there, he said that US and NATO actions in 2022 “proved that the appeasing policy does not function against revisionist leaders that do not respect the international law.”

Androulakis said that Greece will continue to defend its sovereignty but that the attempt by NATO and the US to stay neutral is giving an alibi to Erdogan to act out without repercussions.

He said not a bullet, never mind fighter jets or aircraft carriers, should be sold to a country threatening the peace in Southeast Europe and the Mediterranean, reported the state-run Athens-Macedonia News Agency (ANA.)

“While we are experiencing the repercussions from (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s illegal invasion to Ukraine, the European leadership remains idle to the constant and escalating Turkish provocations against Greece and Cyprus.”