The announcement of the visit to the Berlin memorial to Jews murdered by the Nazi regime, an unusual move for a foreign leader, came after Tsipras told a news conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel that his government's call for reparations from Germany is mainly a moral demand.
"We aren't linking it to the current discussion on the European crisis and Greece's position in the euro zone, and the need to quickly find a solution to move forward," Tsipras told reporters when asked about his government's call for reparations that Germany has rejected. "It's primarily a moral issue and not a material one," he said, adding it was time to overcome "shadows of the past."
Hundreds of villages were razed and more than 20,000 civilians killed in 1941-44 by German soldiers bent on crushing Greek resistance. Resentment runs deep and demands range from 3.5 billion euros to 162 billion euros.
It is not the first time that Tsipras made a symbolic visit to a Nazi-era memorial. In his first act as prime minister in January, Tsipras visited a war memorial in Kaisariani where 200 Greek resistance fighters were slaughtered by the Nazis in 1944.
The Holocaust memorial, with its "Field of Stelae" or 2,711 giant concrete slabs, honours the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and was designed by American Peter Eisenman.
Tsipras will also visit leaders of three left-leaning parties on Tuesday - Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel as well as leaders of the two opposition parties - the radical Left party and Greens.
Source: Reuters
Οι πιο πρόσφατες Ειδήσεις
Διαβάστε πρώτοι τις Ειδήσεις για ό,τι συμβαίνει τώρα στην Ελλάδα και τον Κόσμο στο thetoc.gr
