Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos had separate one-on-one meetings in Brussels yesterday, Tuesday, 22 July – on the margins of the EU Foreign Affairs Council and the meeting of EU Foreign Ministers with their counterparts from the Eastern Partnership countries – with the Foreign Ministers of Ukraine, Pavlo Klimkin; and Azerbaijan, Elmar Mammadyarov; and with Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Natalia Gherman.
Messrs. Venizelos and Klimkin discussed recent developments in Ukraine and referred to the tragic shooting down of the Malaysian Airlines aircraft in eastern Ukraine. The discussion then extended to a broad range of bilateral and regional issues, with special reference to the Greek Ukrainian community in Mariupol and the wider region, the State University of Humanitarian Studies in Mariupol, as well as the upcoming celebration of the 220th anniversary of the founding of Odessa, a city with close historical ties to Greece. Special mention was made to the affinity between Greeks and Ukrainians due to the Orthodox Christian faith shared by the two peoples.
Mr. Venizelos met next with Azeri Foreign Minister Mammadyarov, with whom he carried out a review of the agreements reached during Azeri President Ilham Aliyev’s recent visit to Athens, with emphasis on the outlook for energy cooperation between the two countries.
Finally, Mr. Venizelos and his Moldovan counterpart, Ms. Gherman, had an in-depth discussion of issues of bilateral, regional and international interest. Ms. Gherman reiterated the Moldovan’s side gratitude to Greece and to the Hellenic Presidency of the Council of the European Union for abolishing travel visa requirements for citizens of Moldova, as well as for the signing of the EU-Moldova Association Agreement.
July 23, 2014