Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis expressed his intention to extend a hand of friendship to the winner of the elections in Turkey in an extensive interview with the Associated Press.

The Greek prime minister, 10 days before the elections in Greece, states that he is willing to talk to whoever emerges as the winner from the polls on Sunday, May 14 in Turkey, however, he adds: “But I am not naive. I know that countries’ foreign policies don’t change overnight.”

“I would like to hope that the next Turkish government will reconsider its approach to the West as a whole, not only to Greece, to Europe, to NATO and to the United States,” said Mr. Mitsotakis, while on a pre-election campaign. campaign in central Greece on Thursday night.

“But again, I have to be realistic and not be too naive, and that’s why we will continue our stable foreign policy. This means that we will continue to strengthen our deterrence and defense capabilities.”

Regarding Greece’s armament programs, the Greek Prime Minister emphasizes: “I wish I didn’t have to spend much more than 2% of my GDP on Defense. But unfortunately, we live in a precarious neighborhood with … a much bigger country than us that is behaving aggressively.”

On the occasion of the rapprochement that took place after February’s deadly earthquake in Turkey, Kyriakos Mitsotakis says that “it’s a shame, we don’t have to wait for a disaster to hit us, nor is it our destiny to live in a state of permanent tension.”

But he stressed that better ties require an end to bellicose rhetoric from Turkey. “If the Turkish government is saying every now and then that night will come to our islands, obviously this is not very favorable for building a climate of trust and goodwill,” he said.

Regarding the May 21 elections, the Greek prime minister says that “what we need is a stable government, and preferably we need a one-party government.”

Among other things, he also spoke about immigration, stressing: “We overturned the policy of the previous government, which had an open door policy that ended up allowing more than a million people to cross into Greece in 2015. This is not going to happen again.”