Turkey undermines the stability of the region, but Greece follows a national strategy and plan that have brought great success through time, Greek Foreign Affairs Minister Nikos Dendias said on Wednesday, during a debate in parliament.

Speaking during the plenary session on the ratification of the maritime zone agreements Greece signed with Italy and Egypt, Dendias said every word in the agreements resulted from detailed review, and called on opposition parties not to cast doubt on the agreement on an exclusive economic zone with Egypt, which would harm the country.

Dendias said it was a deliberate choice not to include a clause of optional recourse to the international court at the Hague in case of a future controversy in the agreement with Egypt, unlike the agreement with Italy, to prevent a possible use of it by a third country to promote its own interests.

As to the area covered by the agreement with Egypt (at the 27.59th meridian), the minister said the specific zone was included "in order to be able to delimit the remaining part of Rhodes, of Kastellorizo and of the Megisti complex in a future agreement."

In terms of contacts he made on expanding the territorial sea area from 6 nautical miles to 12 in the Ionian Sea, Dendias said he had informed both the EU and Albania's prime minister, with whom he will meet shortly to discuss the outstanding delimiting of a zone with Albania. 

He also said that he is scheduled to meet with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Berlin, where he will travel on Thursday, and he called on all parties to show national unity before Turkey.