The Albanian Prime Minister Declares That the Greeks Are Wrong to Consider Themselves Heirs of Plato and Aristotle

And so we find that hostility towards Greece flourishes not only in Turkey but in Albania too.

What is more, the anti-Greek discourse in these countries reaches the point of absurdity: one hears time and again the claim, for instance, that Greece never existed at all and was invented by the English, and so on.

And if one looks closely, it turns out that, apart from pragmatically minded Bulgaria, Greece has no friends among its neighbours. In the Second World War Greece fought three enemies at once: the Germans, the Italians and the Albanians; and in the First, the Turks and the Bulgarians.

With Turkey there is a quarrel over Cyprus, territorial waters and airspace in the Aegean Sea, maritime borders and gas fields. With North Macedonia there were, until recently, serious disputes over the country's name, "Macedonia", and its historical heritage. With Albania there is friction over the rights of national minorities, maritime borders and mutual historical claims. With Libya, disagreements emerge over exclusive economic zones in the Mediterranean and the Libyan-Turkish agreements.