Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs Miltiadis Varvitsiotis today met with the Russian Federation’s Ambassador to Athens, Andrey Maslov. The Alternate Minister had the opportunity to brief his interlocutor on the current Greek Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and the events being planned for November in Athens, in view of the 70th anniversary of the signing of the European Convention on Human Rights.
They also discussed issues of cooperation between the two sides in the framework of the Council of Europe and in the context of the Greek-Russian Joint Interministerial Committee, which the Alternate Minister co-chairs with Russian Transport Minister Yevgeny Dietrich. It was agreed that communication between the two co-chairs – postponed in March due to the pandemic – should take place as soon as possible.
Mr. Varvitsiotis again raised the issue of the repatriation of the archives of the Jewish community of Greece, stressing the importance the Greek government attaches to the speedy resolution of this longstanding issue. The Russian Ambassador thanked the Greek side for the Greek authorities’ assistance in repatriating Russian citizens in the midst of the pandemic and expressed his country’s interest in participating in the celebrations marking the bicentennial of the Greek Revolution.
Both sides expressed their satisfaction with the implementation of the 2019-2020 Year of Language and Literature Programme, hoping for a similar outcome for the ‘Year of History’ in 2021.
July 7, 2020