The Press Office of the CC of the KKE issued a statement on the NATO Summit in Vilnius, which reads as follows:

“The NATO Summit in Vilnius (Lithuania), which is due to be held on 11–12 July 2023, will add further fuel to the fire of imperialist wars and rivalries. These rivalries are currently manifested in the fierce military conflict in Ukraine, as well as in the tension in the Indo-Pacific and other regions, where the struggle over raw materials, energy, the transport routes of the commodities, market shares, i.e. for the division of capital’s profits, is escalating.

Specifically, based on the statements of NATO staffs, it is expected that:

- NATO’s involvement in the war in Ukraine will deepen, with further political guarantees, new military aid to the reactionary Zelenskiy government and the establishment of a “NATO–Ukraine Council”;

- the Ukrainian forces will be equipped with new, modern NATO weapons and that military forces will receive training;

- NATO’s multinational forces and “regional plans” will be bolstered by increasing the number of NATO combat forces to 300,000 and reinforcing them in areas neighbouring Russia and Ukraine. New NATO forces are being deployed both in the Baltic and the Balkans;

- NATO’s enlargement will take place with the access of Finland and Sweden, which, in addition to NATO’s encirclement of Russia, is also linked to the dispute over control of the Arctic, given that after this development 7 out of  8 Arctic countries will be NATO members;

- military expenditure of the member states will increase, with a threshold of 2% of GDP, placing new financial burdens of billions of euros on the people’s shoulders, in order to serve the aggressive plans of the Euro-Atlantic monopolies;

- NATO will expand cooperation with countries in the Indo-Pacific region involved in US-NATO plans such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. NATO’s new military confrontation with China, which has been described as a threat in “NATO’s Strategic Concept”since last year, has been brewing up in that region;

- NATO will prepare for the use of nuclear weapons in the fields of imperialist conflicts.

The New Democracy government, with the support of other Euro-Atlantic parties such as SYRIZA and PASOK, bears huge responsibilities for the implementation of these dangerous plans. It has sent weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, it has enhanced the US-NATO bases in the country, it has provided Greek military forces to staff NATO formations, it has increased spending on equipment for NATO’s needs and it has made ports and airports available for criminal plans that target our people.

This policy, which serves the interests of the Greek bourgeoisie and its allies, turns against our people and the sovereign rights of the Greek islands and the country in general, foreshadowing developments in Greek-Turkish relations towards a painful compromise in the Aegean. It is no coincidence that the Republic of Cyprus has disappeared from NATO documents and the reference to it is being replaced by geographical coordinates, while the Dardanelles and Bosporus Straits are being christened ‘Turkish Straits’ on the initiative of the USA.

Our people must now strengthen their struggle for:

- Greece’s disentanglement from the imperialist war in Ukraine;

- the closure of US-NATO bases in our country;

- the deployment abroad of Greek military forces and weapons systems to stop,

- the disengagement from NATO and the EU, with the people being masters in their own land and holding power in their own hands.”

10.07.2023