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<\/a>Following his meeting with President Trump at the White House, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (center of table, speaking) holds a presser. Newsmax’s John Gizzi is seated at the head of the table. (Newsmax)<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n
Tsipras: Greece a Buffer to Unreliable Ally Turkey<\/h2>\n
By\u00a0John Gizzi
\nNEWSMAX<\/p>\n
Following the first meeting of U.S. President Donald Trump and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras Tuesday at the White House, Tsipras and Trump showed signs of having an excellent working and personal relationship.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe two leaders may come from very different backgrounds, but their cooperation is a strategic choice \u2014 one that can help both countries’ interests in the troubled region of the eastern Mediterranean,\u201d Katerina Sokou, Washington, D.C. correspondent for the Greek publication Kathemerini, told Newsmax.<\/p>\n
Greek government sources told Newsmax that Trump and Tsipras got along well in their private meetings and that the prime minister found the president \u201cvery smart, very direct, and he had a lot of questions about Greece.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking to a small group of reporters at Blair House late Tuesday after noon, Tsipras said his sessions with Trump were \u201cvery constructive\u201d and that the president considered Greece \u201cone of the more reliable allies\u201d of the U.S.<\/p>\n
At the same session, the prime minister told how his country lost one-quarter of its gross domestic product and more than 1 million jobs since its crippling debt crisis began in 2010.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut our message to the international community now is that Greece is back,\u201d said Tsipras, emphasizing that Greece has gained 400,000 new jobs in the last year and will almost certainly resolve its debts to the International Monetary Fund next year. Growth in Greece, he added, was 2 percent in 2017.<\/p>\n
Tsipras also said that tourism continues to flourish, that \u201cinvestments \u2014 especially from the United States \u2014 have helped,\u201d and \u201cand any discussion that we will somehow leave the Euro [currency] is behind us. Greece will remain the Eurozone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because of what Tsipras called \u201cthe unique advantage of our location,\u201d Greece can be a hub for investment in transportation, energy, and new technologies. He also said that the rebound of the Aegean nation from its crippling debt \u2014 which reached 323 billion euros in 2015 \u2014 demonstrates to the world that \u201cGreece will be a pillar of stability\u201d for investors.<\/p>\n
But Greece\u2019s increased role as a player in Europe, Kathemerini\u2019s Sokou told me, \u201cAlso comes as a result of the vacuum created by an increasingly unreliable ally in Erdogan’s Turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sources in the Greek government told us that Tsipras considers Turkish President Erdogan \u201cvery unpredictable\u201d and that he is pleased the Trump Administration is increasing its cooperation with Athens by upgrading its naval base at Souda Bay in Crete. In Greece, currently the U.S. maintains 15 U.S. Air Force bases, 9 U.S. Navy bases, and six U.S. Army bases, and shows no signs of closing any of them.<\/p>\n
By maintaining the U.S. presence in Turkey and continuing to work closely with Tsipras, the same Greek government sources told me, the Trump administration can help keep Turkey cooperating with NATO and the European Union.<\/p>\n
Seven years after its economy was completely devastated, Greece shows strong signs of a recovery and the nation could be a key ally in Europe as well as a player on the national security front.<\/p>\n