Earlier in the day, Dendias had announced that ‘this morning the Greek Patriot battery in Saudi Arabia shot down two ballistic missiles originating from Iran and directed at refineries in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’, triggering immediate reactions from opposition parties.
Addressing the forum, the minister argued that ‘the effectiveness of the armed forces is being proven’, and declared himself ‘very proud of the level of the armed forces of Greece’. He went on to justify the deployment in economic terms: ‘What we are doing is to protect every citizen of the EU and the whole world, as the price of oil is very important for our livelihood.’
The Greek Communist Party (KKE) was swift to respond. The Press Office of its Central Committee described Dendias’s remarks as a ‘cynical confession’ that exposes Greece’s participation in what it called a ‘dirty war’, and warned of the dangers faced by Greek soldiers serving abroad. The party denounced the minister for framing the armed forces’ involvement as supposedly protecting citizens from high energy prices, accusing him of exceeding ‘every limit of vulgarity.’
SYRIZA said in a statement that Dendias’s remarks ‘constitute a blatant admission of our country’s involvement in the war in the Middle East’, adding that ‘Mitsotakis’s attachment to the Trump-Netanyahu chariot only creates dangers’ for Greece.
New Left was equally unequivocal: ‘The shooting down of ballistic missiles by a Greek Patriot battery in Saudi Arabia, announced by the Hellenic National Defence General Staff and “proudly” by the minister of national defence, Nikos Dendias, means one thing: Greece is already involved in the war.’
PASOK’s national defence spokesman, Michalis Katrinis, said: ‘The minister of national defence, in his statement, boasts and overemphasises the fact of the downing of two Iranian ballistic missiles by a Greek Patriot battery, located in Saudi Arabia and operated by Greek military personnel. Obviously, the government does not realise that this specific incident, and even more so Mr Dendias’s statement, constitutes Greece’s involvement in the war, something that the prime minister had ruled out. The reality is one: along with the two Iranian missiles, the government’s narrative about Greece’s non-involvement (direct or indirect) in the war was also shot down, a position that PASOK supported from the beginning.’
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