(ANSA-AFP) - ATHENS, MAR 25 - Greece will mark 200 years
since the start of its independence war with the Ottoman Empire
on Thursday, with parades and ceremonies attended by foreign
dignitaries, though the pandemic forced officials to scale back
events. With celebrations planned all over Greece and among
diaspora communities overseas, Prime Minister Kyriakos
Mitsotakis said on Wednesday the "rebirth of Greece" was "a
special moment for all Hellenism". Greece fought for nearly a
decade for its independence from an empire that extended through
the Balkans and modern-day Turkey to North Africa, coming out
victorious thanks to military intervention by Britain, France
and Russia. The three allies from the conflict are among the
countries to have sent military hardware for Thursday's
celebrations. Parades of tanks, artillery and overflying jets
will mark the occasion in the capital Athens, alongside mounted
troops in traditional costumes from the 1821 conflict. Among the
foreign dignitaries attending are Russian Prime Minister Mikhail
Mishustin and Britain's Prince Charles, with France represented
by Defence Minister Florence Parly after President Emmanuel
Macron pulled out over the pandemic. "As the wellspring of
Western civilisation, Greece's spirit runs through our societies
and our democracies," Charles said at a dinner at the
presidential mansion on Wednesday. "Without her, our laws, our
art, our way of life, would never have flourished as they have."
- Sympathy for the cause - Macron in an interview with Greek
television on Wednesday referred to tensions between Greece and
Turkey over their disputed maritime border. Hostilities flared
last year when Ankara sent a research ship accompanied by a navy
flotilla into waters near the Turkish coast that Greece asserts
belongs to it -- a claim the EU supports. "We must always be on
the side of our European allies when they are attacked in their
sovereignty, when they are threatened in their independence, the
respect of their borders," Macron said. A cannon on Lycabettus
Hill overlooking Athens will fire a salute of 21 shots before
the foreign visitors lay wreaths at the Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier, Greece's foremost military monument, the defence
ministry said. Some 4,000 police, drones and snipers will be
deployed in Athens, a police source said. Sympathy for the cause
of Greece in 1821 sparked a movement in Europe and the United
States known as Philhellenism, with proponents including former
US president Thomas Jefferson, Russian author Alexander Pushkin
and English poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron. Hundreds
of Philhellene volunteers fought and died for Greece's
liberation, with Byron among them. A joint effort by France,
Russia and Britain eventually defeated a Turkish-Egyptian fleet
in the pivotal 1827 Battle of Navarino, and further military
reverses forced the Ottoman Empire to recognise Greece's
sovereignty in 1830. (ANSA-AFP).
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