Gerapetritis: no Greek frigate to the Persian Gulf under war conditions

Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis ruled out on Tuesday sending a Greek frigate to the Persian Gulf, as Skai reports. In an interview with Skai 100.3, he declared that “under war conditions in the Persian Gulf as we find ourselves today, there cannot be any mission”, adding that the zone is mined and unsafe, with the Strait of Hormuz practically blocked.

According to Newsit, Gerapetritis disagreed with the statements of EU diplomacy chief Kaja Kallas, who called for more ships for Operation Aspides in the Red Sea, stressing the need is “greater than ever” — without yet securing new commitments from member states. The Greek minister stressed that Greece already participates in and leads the European effort: “in the Red Sea there is a Greek frigate moving to secure ships, especially Greek ones,” he told Skai, while on the Persian Gulf he was categorical: with the strait blocked and the zone mined, “no mission is possible”.

In the same Skai interview, Gerapetritis dismissed the need to revise the route of the Greece–Cyprus–Israel electricity interconnector (GSI). The cable, he said, “never passed through Turkish marine parks” — the route is “dozens of miles further south” — so “there is absolutely no reason for redrawing”. “Greece is the country that will license the project,” he stressed, calling writings about a route change “entirely out of reality”.

He defended the structured dialogue with Türkiye, saying communication channels with Ankara were never interrupted and that talking does not mean concessions from Greek positions. He set as a non-negotiable condition for a multilateral conference of Eastern Mediterranean coastal states the participation of the Republic of Cyprus, and confirmed he speaks with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan.

On the Persian Gulf, Gerapetritis said Iran has understood that control of the Strait of Hormuz is its “real big, strong, nuclear weapon”, and that he sees no “near normalization” — Tehran demands, among other things, the unfreezing of blocked Iranian funds and an absolute freeze of hostilities in the Middle East. He added that Greece, with over 60% of the European merchant fleet and around 20% of the world’s, is “extremely decisive for energy security”, and announced that freedom of navigation will be the number one priority of the Greek presidency of the UN Security Council starting October 1.