Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos had a full schedule of bilateral meetings in New York today, Wednesday, 24 September, within the framework of the Ministerial Week of the 69th UN General Assembly. Following today’s meetings, he made the following statement to Greek Public Television (NERIT):
“The UN General Assembly is an opportunity for a large number of bilateral meetings. Today I saw, in this order, my colleagues from Algeria, Montenegro, and Iran, and I will continue with a meeting with my colleague from India.
Tomorrow, as every year, we have the meeting with my Turkish counterpart, and on Friday, the Greece-Egypt-Cyprus trilateral meeting and our bilateral meeting with Egypt.
We are looking at all the issues – not just bilateral, but also on the regional and international level, and at this time we have information and assessments from many perspectives, which allows us not only to shape our national choices, but also to contribute to the formulation of the European Union’s positions.
This evening, at the Euroatlantic dinner, the 28 EU Foreign Ministers and the 28 NATO Foreign Ministers will have the opportunity for a discussion. Many of us are in both the EU and NATO, but there are countries, like Cyprus, that are in the EU but not NATO, or Turkey, which is in NATO but not in the EU. And this, as you can see, is for many reasons an important forum that we capitalize on every time, as we will do today.”
September 24, 2014