Editorial: Everything wrong

The turn of events in the case of the two Greek military officers who are being held in a Turkish prison is cause for great concern about their fate.

The case also raises questions about the government’s handling of the affair, and about its preparedness to avert such accidents, and about its reactions after the event occurred.

From the results until now, it is clear that the government did everything wrong. Its planning on all levels – from preventive measures that it had a duty to have in place in a period that is critical for Greek-Turkish relations, to the pronouncements about a rapid and happy ending of the adventure – proved inadequate and wrong-headed.

Another mistake was the government’s decision not to contact rapidly Greece’s international allies. Instead, it displayed an attitude that there is nothing serious going on.

Once again, the government limited itself to a communications-based handling of the situation. But even here it made mistakes. It forgot that it is not dealing with a government that is seeking a democratic future, but rather a state that is slipping ever more into authoritarianism.

In such conditions, the last thing one needs is shoddiness.

What is required is constant vigilance, a high sense of responsibility, and the understanding of the dangers of a situation.

In the future, the government is obliged to work on the basis of that three-pronged approach. It has only one path ahead, which is that of averting even worse developments.