Government pleased with first Mitsotakis-Biden talk
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and US President Joe Biden reaffirmed the strategic nature of Greek-US cooperation for security and prosperity in the wider Eastern Mediterranean region during a phone contact late on Thursday.
According to sources from the prime minister’s office, Biden stressed that today Greece is a critical ally in NATO, with active action for peace and prosperity in the Eastern Mediterranean, Black Sea and Western Balkans, stressing the importance of defence cooperation between the two countries, with reference to the US forces in Souda.
On his part, Mitsotakis congratulated Biden on his election, expressing Greece’s readiness for close cooperation with the United States in international fora, aiming at defending the common values of both countries, with emphasis on human rights and the fight against climate change.
The prime minister personally thanked the US President for the consistent support, adding that in the long-standing relationship between the two countries, the Greek-American community acts as a bridge.
Commenting on Biden’s invite to Mitsotakis during the call, a government spokesperson said on Friday the Greek premier’s trip to Washington D.C. will take place in the current year, if the conditions created by the pandemic allow it.
The phone call was also reported in POLITICO Europe. Here’s what its column Brussels Playbook, a briefing about the goings-on in the Belgian and EU capital, had to say about it:
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis could easily have been the most envied-by-his-colleagues leader on Thursday: He was the only one have secured a bilateral call with Biden in the aftermath of the group chat. Alas, he didn’t tell them about his one-on-one — on the occasion of the bicentennial of the Greek revolution — beforehand, leaving it to them to find out this morning. How even sweeter for him to say what a “warm and constructive phone call” he had with Biden, during which the two discussed “at length the common ties between our two nations.”
