Anthony Blinken arrived in Chania where he will have a personal meeting with the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

As it was announced earlier by an announcement from the Press Office of Mr. Mitsotakis, the meeting will take place at the Prime Minister’s residence.

Chania is the second stop of the American Foreign Minister on his tour of Turkey, Greece and the Middle East.

Anthony Blinken arrives in Chania after Istanbul, where he had meetings with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

According to a statement from the press office of the Greek Prime Minister, after the Mitsotakis-Blinken meeting, a working meeting will follow, in which they will participate the Minister of Foreign Affairs Giorgos Gerapetritis, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexandra Papadopoulou, the director of the diplomatic office of the Prime Minister, Ambassador Anna Maria Boura and the special advisor of International Policy and Public Diplomacy of the Prime Minister.

The agenda of the Prime Minister’s meeting with the American Foreign Minister will be focused on two axes, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Gerapetritis explained today to SKAI. At international developments regarding the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, due to growing concerns about the expansion of conflicts in the wider Middle East region.

Discussions will also focus on bilateral relations, especially on the issues energy and defense cooperationwhich are also related to the supply of the F-35, said Mr. Gerapetritis, even mentioning that “I feel that the issue will end, it is a matter of time before Greece enters the program”.

The importance of the meeting of the Prime Minister with the American Secretary of State in the presence and the leadership of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the government representative emphasized in a televised interview, Pavlos Marinakis.

“It is a very important meeting”, said Mr. Marinakis and pointing out that “the developments in our region will be discussed” he emphasized that “this visit marks, once again, the significant role, the leading role which Greece is playing, as a whole but also in the wider region. The agenda also includes the developments in the Middle East, overall the developments in the Eastern Mediterranean, due to the wars we have near us and of course the relations between the two countries. I believe that Greece-US relations are at their best
strong point, at the highest level,” said the government representative.