Antonis Samaras opens a new front against Kyriakos Mitsotakis, unleashing a fierce attack on government foreign policy and directly demanding the dismissal of Minister of Foreign Affairs Giorgos Gerapetritis.
Focusing on developments in Libya, the Turkish-Libyan memorandum, and the electrical interconnection between Greece and Cyprus, the former prime minister speaks of failure in governmental management and attributes primary responsibility to Kyriakos Mitsotakis himself.
This intervention comes through an article of his in the newspaper «Estia» and just hours before his joint appearance today with Kostas Karamanlis at the War Museum.
Antonis Samaras argues that foreign policy cannot be a personal matter of a prime minister or a minister, as it concerns the entire country and its historical continuity.
Describing the latest developments in Libya as a failure in geopolitical analysis, forecasting, and diplomatic handling, he turns personally against the Minister of Foreign Affairs, while holding the prime minister accountable both for selecting and retaining him in his post.
The «calm waters» in the crosshairs
He appears particularly scathing toward the strategy of «calm waters» in Greek-Turkish relations and the Athens Declaration on friendly relations and good-neighborliness.
The former prime minister characterizes this specific policy as a paramount error of Greek foreign policy, comparing it to the Madrid and Helsinki agreements.
As he argues, the government narrative attempted to portray the rapprochement with Ankara as an ordinary diplomatic dialogue, whereas, in his view, Greece risks being led into a de facto acceptance of faits accomplis. Indeed, he refers to the backlash he and another former prime minister had faced when expressing similar concerns, maintaining that partisan fanaticism impedes a dispassionate assessment of developments.
Jabs over the Turkish-Libyan memorandum
The largest part of his intervention focuses on the Turkish-Libyan memorandum and developments in eastern Libya.
Antonis Samaras cites a public statement by Giorgos Gerapetritis on August 24, 2026, according to which Greece had ensured that ratification of the memorandum by the Libyan side would not proceed, and contrasts this assurance with the minister's subsequent statement that preventing ratification did not depend on Athens.
«Either he was mocking us in August, therefore, or he publicly confesses that we are powerless to influence Libya», he states pointedly, directly raising a question over the credibility of government assessments.
Concurrently, he links developments to the meeting between Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar last June, questioning the outcome of the contacts of Athens. Within the same context, he also points to increased migration flows toward Crete.
The cable and sovereign rights
The former prime minister extends his critique to the project of the electrical interconnection between Greece and Cyprus.
He invokes the statements of Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Hakan Fidan regarding written notification of Turkey regarding works and relevant coordinates, as well as the response of Giorgos Gerapetritis that such notification could be possible without constituting a licensing process.
According to Antonis Samaras, even this phrasing carries the risk of indirectly acknowledging Turkish jurisdiction.
He maintains that Greece is not obliged to seek permission from Turkey for the implementation of the project and that relevant notification can occur through established procedures, such as issuing a NAVTEX.
Indeed, he links the issue to the delimitation of the EEZ between Greece and Egypt.
A policy change is a «one-way street»
Antonis Samaras further refers to Saint Catherine's Monastery, requesting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to make public the agreement proposed by the Greek side regarding its future.
In closing, he attributes «enormous national responsibility» to Kyriakos Mitsotakis and demands a change in foreign policy, with the «self-evident dismissal of Gerapetritis».
The message to the Maximos Mansion is unmistakable: the former prime minister no longer limits himself to isolated disagreements, but directly challenges the overall strategy of the government on national issues.
Nikos Eleftheroglou
www.bankingnews.gr
Readers’ Comments