US President Donald Trump is meeting today with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at the White House.
The meeting between the two national leaders comes amid recent United States’ tensions with Iran after an American airstrike killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.
During Monday’s Greek Orthodox Epiphany celebrations in Tarpon Springs, Florida, Mitsotakis said that he planned to inform Trump of “the serious dangers that Turkey’s aggressive and illegal behavior raises for peace and security” in the Eastern Mediterranean while confirming Greece’s role as a “long-term, reliable but also predictable ally” in the region.
The meeting provides Mitsotakis an opportunity to emphasize Greece’s openness to American investment and the fact that the government had reduced regulatory “red tape.”
Mitsotakis and Trump are meeting for the second time since the Greek prime minister’s election in July 2019. An unnamed senior US government official said that Greece has become a “pillar of stability” in the Eastern Mediterranean and that the meeting marked a milestone in Greek-American relations.
“From a source of problems Greece has now become a source of solutions. It is also a pillar of stability that constitutes a crucial piece of America’s broader strategy in the Eastern Mediterranean,” the official told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency on Tuesday.
The official added that Greece and the US are collaborating not only as NATO allies, but also as countries with “common values and common strategic interests in the Eastern Mediterranean.”
Featured image / Jonathan Ernst, Reuters
Watch the press conference
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