WHAT CAN BE EXPECTED OF NEW GREEK DEFENSE MINISTER KAMMENOS
admin1 – January 29, 2015 – 3:48pm

The participation of the nationalist party Independent Greeks in the new Greek government may not be crucial in defining the foreign policy of Alexis Tsipras' cabinet, yet Macedonia will most certainly be the last country that its leader Panos Kammenos will visit as minister of defense, Dnevnik comments.

Kammenos will very soon have an opportunity to speak his mind on Macedonia's issue, be it at a ministerial NATO meeting, an ISAF conference or a gathering discussing ways to fight ISIS. Nobody is forecasting for now what positions he would present, yet bearing in mind his earlier statements, analysts trust nothing he says will be a surprise.

Only few days prior to the elections, Kammenos stated that Greece cannot let go of its national interests, sovereignty, territorial integrity and truth "as against those promoting territorial claims against Greece, such as Skopje, for instance".

"Skopje has to understand that its use of the word 'Macedonia' was but a figment of the imagination of some people from the time of the Cold War. At the leader's meeting chaired by Konstantinos Karamanlis, Greece decided not to let anyone use the name of Macedonia and this decision cannot be altered without convening a council of political party leaders," he said before the poll.