The American Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, arrived at the Maximos Palace about 10 minutes before the scheduled meeting with the Prime Minister.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis welcomed the American official in order to start the meeting between them with a rich agenda.

According to information, dinner will follow.

He arrived in Athens in the afternoon, shortly after 17:30, coming from Ankara, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

Immediately after, the head of American diplomacy left the airport for the Maximos Palace, where he will meet with the prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Government spokesman Giannis Oikonomou, while briefing the political editors, described Blinken’s visit as an extremely positive event and underlined that Greece’s relations with the US are at their best level in recent years. Regarding the agenda for the meeting between the US Secretary of State and the Prime Minister, G. Economou said that all the issues concerning our country, but also the international political scene, including all the major issues, the war in Ukraine, energy, relations with Turkey, NATO.

From the US side, the US Deputy Secretary of State for European affairs, Karen Donfried, has expressed the assessment that during the contacts that Mr. Blinken will have in our country, all the current geopolitical developments will be discussed.

Early Tuesday morning, the head of the State Department will meet with Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias. Specifically, at 8:45, as part of the extended talks, the two ministers will announce the start of the 4th round of the Greece-US Strategic Dialogue and then talks between the two delegations will follow. Afterwards, there will be a private meeting between the foreign ministers of Greece and the US, while at 10:30 joint statements to the press will take place. The talks in the framework of bilateral relations are expected to focus on ways to further strengthen strategic bilateral relations, in all sectors as well as regional and international developments.

It is recalled that the 3rd round of the Greece-US Strategic Dialogue took place in Washington in October 2021. The areas of cooperation covered by the Strategic Dialogue are: Regional Issues, Defense and Security, Law Enforcement and Combating Terrorism, Humanitarian challenges and Disaster Preparedness, Trade and Investment, Energy and Environment, Ties between the two peoples.

During his visit to Athens, Anthony Blinken will also meet with former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. The meeting will take place tomorrow, at 11:30 at the “Great Britain” hotel.

It is included in the program of the American Secretary of State and his guided tour of the Ancient Agora.

Anthony Blicken will then meet with mmembers of the EMAK search and rescue teams who returned from the earthquake affected areas of Turkey. Subsequently, he will inaugurate the extension of the embassy building, in the presence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikos Dendias and the Archbishop of Athens.

It is noted that Anthony Blinken visited Turkey on Sunday and Monday, where he went to the areas affected by the deadly earthquake of February 6 and met with the country’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu. During his visit, he announced the granting of $100 million in additional aid to those affected by the earthquake that caused nearly 45,000 deaths in the country and neighboring Syria.