The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) issued a press release following the Regional Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties of the Mediterranean, the Middle and the Gulf, also attended by the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP).
ICP, 3 December 2017
In Athens, on November 26, 2017, a Regional Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties of the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Gulf was organized at the initiative of the CP of Greece. Communist and Workers’ Parties from Egypt, Algeria, France, Greece, Spain, Iran, Israel, Italy, Cyprus, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey participated in the meeting. The contributions of the parties are available at the website https://mmepgmeeting2017.
The International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE issued a press release and presented the following assessments concerning the meeting:
The meeting discussed the complex and dangerous situation that is developing in our region and the attention of party representatives was concentrated on strengthening solidarity in the just struggle of the Palestinian people and on the need to develop the joint action of the Communist and Workers’ Parties, the working class and other popular strata against imperialist interventions and threats, in confronting the danger of a new imperialist war.
This is because this meeting was held under conditions where:
‐ The rivalry of the monopolies and the imperialist powers over the control of energy resources, transport routes, and market shares, is being reinforced, as was clearly demonstrated by the imperialist interventions in Syria, Iraq and Libya.
‐ The attack by bourgeois forces against workers’ and social rights, accompanied by the intensification of anti‐ communism, is being strengthened, as shown by the efforts of the EU in its anti‐communist ‘fiesta’ in Tallinn.
‐ The US, the EU, NATO and Israel are playing an especially negative role in these developments, along with the bourgeois classes of Turkey and the Gulf monarchies (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates) that with a particularly active role, using political, economic and military means, promote the interests of the monopolies.
‐ Various armed criminal obscurantist ISIS‐type forces, which were equipped and supported with various means by the imperialists, are being utilized as a component in imperialist interventions and wars.
Under these circumstances, the Communist and Workers’ Parties of the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Gulf, that met in Athens, expressed their solidarity with the Workers’‐People’s Movement of Greece which is fighting against the choices of the SYRIZA‐ANEL government, which supports the aims of NATO imperialists; developing its cooperation with Israel, making the Souda military base in Crete available to serve the designs of the USA and NATO, and preparing the ground so that Greece is able to receive American nuclear weapons.
In their speeches, many representatives of the Communist and Workers’ Parties noted that the promotion of the interests of the working class and other popular strata requires the development of an organized, coordinated struggle for workers and people's rights, a common struggle against monopolies and the capitalist exploitative system. In this direction, many speakers highlighted the necessity of the peoples:
‐ To express even more powerfully, their solidarity with the just struggle of the Palestinian people against the Israeli occupation, and for the recognition of an independent Palestinian state, for the release of political prisoners, for a cessation of settlements, as well as their solidarity with the people of Cyprus against the Turkish occupation and for the reunification of Cyprus.
‐ To express our solidarity with the just struggle of the Syrian people against imperialist aggression, to defend its right and of all peoples to choose their own path of social and political development, the path that corresponds to their own interests, without foreign imperialist interventions.
‐ To condemn the prohibition or restriction of action of the Communist and Workers’ Parties, the restriction of trade unions’ democratic rights and freedoms.
‐ To condemn the military intervention of Saudi Arabia in Yemen that has led to tragic consequences for the people of the country.
‐ To condemn the dangerous policies of the regimes of the USA, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the threats regarding military conflict with Iran. Additionally, we support the struggle of the Iranian people for democratic rights and social progress.
‐ To reject the pretenses used by the imperialists in order to justify intervention and war, to strengthen the struggle against the bourgeois class in every country, the struggle to eliminate the causes that give rise to imperialist wars, to abolish nuclear weapons, for the people to live in peace.
‐ To prevent, through struggle, the use of their countries (the territories, the airspace, their waters) for the unleashing of imperialist interventions and wars. Finally, the communist and workers’ parties of the region, that met a few days after the 100th anniversary of the Great October Revolution, declare that it remains a shining beacon in the struggle of our peoples for social and democratic rights, for socialism.