ATHENS — Main opposition SYRIZA criticized Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for "creating an unprecedented disturbance in Greece" over the Prespes Agreement, which was the focus of a meeting between him and North Macedonia's Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani in Athens on Thursday.

The agreement was signed by the foreign ministers of Syriza, then the ruling party, and North Macedonia on June 17, 2018.

"In today's meeting," the party said in a statement, "Mr. Mitsotakis requested the faithful observation and full implementation" of the Prespes Agreement provisions. After "creating an unprecedented disturbance in Greece with his extreme populism, after first identifying with [far-right] Golden Dawn's rhetoric of hate against the Syriza government, and after embarrassing Greece globally with his hypocrisy, he now completes a 180-degree turn on the issue," it added.

Welcoming nevertheless the premier's present stance for "finally honoring the Prespes Agreement formally," it also added that "he owes an apology both to Syriza for slandering it and to the Greek people, whom he deceived with lies."

Syriza also expressed the hope that Mitsotakis "finally tables the bilateral agreements in Parliament instead of postponing them because he is afraid of his own party."