Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs Miltiadis Varvitsiotis and Afghan Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Meerwais Nab met today at the Foreign Ministry and signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Political Consultations between the two countries.
During their meeting, the two officials reconfirmed the close historical and political ties between the two countries, based chiefly on the Greek cultural heritage in Afghanistan.
Mr. Varvitsiotis stressed the importance of promoting a positive agenda for cooperation between the two countries, but pointed out that this requires responding to issues that cause mutual distrust, such as illegal migration. More specifically, the Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs raised the issue of facilitating voluntary returns for Afghan citizens not eligible for international protection, and he expressed his satisfaction at the positive response from Mr. Nab to the Greek proposal for concluding a relevant bilateral Memorandum of Cooperation. He also underscored that the issue of returns is a key part of the new Migration and Asylum Pact presented by the European Commission.
The Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister expressed the desire for cooperation with the Greek side, through Afghanistan’s Embassy in Athens, on the matter of voluntary returns, and he also expressed the hope that a Greek Embassy will open in Kabul.
Following the meeting, Mr. Varvitsiotis made the following statement:
“Today, I had the opportunity to meet with the Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister and sign a political agreement. Mr. Nab and I had the opportunity to discuss the issues of concern to both countries, and in particular the very complicated migration issue. Greece has always supported internal security and peace in the Afghanistan region. This is why, for many years now, we have participated in the international effort to respond to the Taliban threat. In this context, Greece has welcomed and hosted over 40,000 Afghans in our country. Many of them have refugee status. Some of them do not have refugee status however, and are considered illegal migrants. This is why we have already begun discussing an agreement on migration issues with Afghanistan, so that we can send a message to these people – who risk their lives crossing borders illegally to reach our country. The message is that, if they get here, in the end their journey will be unsuccessful.
October 22, 2020