US helped keep Aegean crisis from spiraling out of control
Outgoing Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt on Turkey, Ukraine and PM’s upcoming US trip
of 2020 Greece and Turkey were on the brink of open conflict, which required putting “a lot of energy into helping to keep things from spiraling out of control,” stresses outgoing United States Ambassador to Greece Geoffrey R. Pyatt in an interview with Kathimerini, noting that the situation was far more dramatic than what was shown by the news media. He also mentions the unacceptable activities, the rhetorical excesses and silly statements made by Turkey on the sovereignty of the Greek islands, while also discussing the security guarantees offered to Greece by the United States, which he says are a result of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
Pyatt also speaks of the strengthening of US-Greek relations during his five and a half years in Athens, a development that unfolded over three US and two Greek governments, proving the across-the-aisle and widespread support for this endeavor. It also underlines Greece’s strategic value, with the ambassador stressing that “Greece is a core part of the West.”
The 58-year-old career diplomat, who is expected to assume the role of assistant secretary of state for energy resources (one of the most important portfolios of the State Department at this time, which will also allow him to continue working with Greece), also discusses the imminent meeting of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis with US President Joe Biden in Washington, the war in Ukraine, which he says is a “battle between good and evil,” while he believes that it is incomprehensible for anyone to feel sympathy for Russian actions.
Finally, he discusses Greece’s cautious approach to energy issues, pointing out that it is far less vulnerable than Germany and other European countries.
– You had a long tenure in Athens. Five and a half years, three US administrations, two Greek governments, and the whole ideological spectrum. Was it difficult? Was it useful?
I will leave the judgments about utility and difficulty to the historians. I will say that I don’t think anything that’s happened in our relationship on either side, through any of the five governments involved, has happened by accident. It has taken hard work from both sides to get us where we are. I’m very proud of the team at the embassy here, during my tenure, and the sense of mission and dedication that they demonstrated and the creativity that they brought to the task. I’ve been privileged to have had outstanding Greek interlocutors through multiple governments, and I’m very grateful for the access and the respect and the collegiality they demonstrated. They’re all very different in so many ways. I’m very optimistic about what the future holds, because of the architecture and the institutions that we’ve established and that’s the ultimate measure of success in these jobs. I’m very grateful personally for the commitment that the prime minister has demonstrated to us, but also for his real hospitality. I’ve been really privileged to be here at this particular time and to be part of a story of rebirth. But also to be here for long enough that I can actually measure a very specific way, how different things look today, compared to what they did in September of 2016.
– Can you take us through the two meetings the two Greek prime ministers had with former US presidents?
Very different. Also came at different times. One of the things that I’m quite proud is of that bipartisan commitment that we have seen to the US-Greece relationship, Republicans and Democrats. Everybody knows President Biden’s commitment to this relationship, Tony Blinken’s, Senator Menendez’ commitment to this relationship, but it’s also really important that we were able to have the kind of support that we had from Mike Pompeo, from Chairman Risch and Chairman Corker before him. That’s something Greeks should not take for granted. Because at a time when American politics has been very divisive, there are relatively few issues that have enjoyed the kind of bipartisan support that the US-Greece relationship is founded upon. That support is rooted in our shared values, but it’s also rooted in an active and increasingly activist diaspora, the relationship between Greece and Israel. So, I think both meetings that I was part of were premised on the idea that the United States wants a strong economically healthy, militarily secure, socially stable Greece, something that advances American interests because of how we look at this part of the world.
– That might have been a given with Obama or Biden, but I was wondering if you were worried, under the Trump administration or Trump personally, about what might happen?
I’ll just say I got a lot done in the US-Greece relationship, working for Mike Pompeo, working with Wilbur Ross, with General Mattis. I will let the historians judge how much of that progress depended on having the right advice coming from the team at the Athens Embassy, but what I will say is I think there is nobody who would have assumed in January of 2017 that things would progress as strongly and as positively as they did in the subsequent four years. Concerning all these administrations and governments, meetings at that level, if you’re the guy on the ground, you’re always anxious. There is a lot at stake and because of how our government is organized, those kind of meetings can have a dramatic impact. And I’m proud to say that, by and large, the impact has been for the good. About Prime Minister Mitsotakis’ trip to Washington in January 2020, we were extraordinarily lucky about the fact that it happened before the pandemic because it gave us a huge burst of positive momentum.
– In a recent interview with Mike Pompeo, he mentioned the summer of 2020, noting that he was on the phone with his ambassadors in Athens and Ankara. Did Greece and Turkey come close to a confrontation?
Certainly it felt to be as severe a crisis as the countries have encountered since Imia in 96, and I’ve lived many other incidents between the countries. But this was different because the stakes were very high, the risks of miscalculation were extraordinarily high and you actually had a military accident that could have gone catastrophically wrong with just a slightly different set of circumstances. So Secretary Pompeo shared with you how intensively we all worked on this and how it had grabbed his attention at the most senior levels of the Trump administration. To share a story, when the secretary called me and said he was proposing to come to Greece, I said: “That’s great, Mr Secretary, but let me try an idea out on you. Instead of coming to Athens, why don’t I take you to Thessalonica, which no secretary of state in history has ever done before? As long as you’re coming all this way, please also go to Souda Bay, because I want you to see how much we’re doing together in our military relationship.” But part of the choice of Souda Bay was also to demonstrate US engagement and US presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, because Souda is that much closer to where the crisis threatened to erupt. It was a very good place to talk about our interests, visibly Libya, about our concern for some of these issues of maritime delimitation in the Eastern Mediterranean and our interest in seeing all of these issues resolved on the basis of international law and not on the basis of provocative, unilateral military actions. So that was a very important part of the diplomatic story as well. But one thing that I’m proud of is the very strong partnership with the Ankara embassy and the work that I have done.
And now I was really pleased that we were able to get Jeff Flake to come here to Athens and to Delphi so early in his tenure. And he had extremely positive encounters with Prime Minister Mitsotakis and Foreign Minister Dendias. And I think he got a strong sense of both how much possibility there is around the US-Greece relationship, how anxious people in Greece are about some of these unresolved maritime issues, and the importance of American
engagement and American diplomacy to keep things as they should be between NATO allies. So, that was very beneficial. The partnership between the two embassies is something that’s very important. I’ve encouraged George Tsounis to invest in the same because it’s really important that we work together. Things have dramatically improved from what they were in the summer of 2020, when it was more severe than what’s sometimes understood in the press.
‘The developments in Ukraine make it even more important to the United States to do everything that we can to make sure that Turkey behaves as a good NATO ally vis-a-vis all its neighbors’
– Did we come close to war, to put it bluntly?
I think you have to ask the governments that. And certainly the United States. You heard from Secretary Pompeo we thought it was a very severe crisis and we put a lot of energy into helping to keep things from spiraling out of control. The circumstances today are dramatically improved, even with all of the continued unacceptable activities, the overflights, the rhetorical excesses, the silly statements questioning the sovereignty of islands, which from an American standpoint is unquestionable. The strategic landscape around the Aegean, the Black Sea, Asia Minor has changed dramatically since February 24, and I think the developments in Ukraine make it even more important to the United States to do everything that we can to make sure that Turkey behaves as a good NATO ally vis-a-vis all its neighbors. And again, this is not the time when we need distractions, whether generated by politics or rhetoric or military maneuvers.
– A message to your successor, Ambassador Tsounis?
The most important thing I told him was: “You’re inheriting an extraordinary embassy staff. Listen to them, empower them and you can’t go wrong.” It’s really true. I’m very proud of the team that we put together. I would also encourage him to get out of Athens. There is so much to discover in Greece outside of Athens and Greek politics tends to be Athenian-driven but there is so much to discover both in terms of some of the economic issues and investment issues that have importance to us. Obviously continuing to demonstrate the commitment that the US has demonstrated to a very strong business, social, educational presence in Thessaloniki is very important. Alexandroupoli is a whole other story, we will continue as US government to work on the energy connections out there, to be involved in the privatization. Thirdly find opportunities to talk to young people.