Dendias: Greece is a country that always seeks security and stability in the region

"Greece is a country that always seeks security and stability in the region. Anything that upsets that climate of security and stability ... obviously hurts the Greek interests," Defence Minister Nikos Dendias said in an interview with Star TV late on Monday when asked about the effects of the Middle East crisis on Greece.
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Referring to Greece's potential, Dendias underlined that "our country must be able to maintain its weapons systems, planes, ships, but also to proceed with the production of missiles, rockets, radars, radios, weapons and ammunition."

"All this is absolutely within the scope of our country's capabilities. And we also have a human capital which is enviable. It is a shame that we let young people go abroad to serve other economies, other societies, other Armed Forces, other flags and not help them stay in Greece and enrich the Greek industry, the Greek Armed Forces as well as the Greek exports," Dendias explained.

"The first thing we will do," he said "is to create the framework, the institutional framework," he noted adding that the legislation is already in the final drafting phase."

Regarding the Confidence Building Measures (CBM) between Greece and Turkey, he said that "I don't want to create the impression that it is a negotiation about everything."

"It is not even a negotiation," he explained. "Confidence Building Measures are measures that were described in a catalogue ten years ago, there are 29 measures - if I remember correctly - and of these we agree which ones we will implement ad referendum.

What does ad referendum mean? The negotiating groups come to an agreement and then go to the ministers to approve or disapprove of their decisions."