The Minister of National Defence Panos Kammenos, in the context of his official visit to Moscow, met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu.

The Minister of National Defence stated the following:

“My meeting with Russia’s Minister of Defence, whom I thank in particular for the invitation and the opportunity to exchange views, has been completed. Greece and Russia are two countries with historic and religious bonds. We reassured each other of the friendly relations of the two countries. The already existing military cooperation programmes will continue to be implemented. The current programmes will be maintained.

We exchanged views also about the big threat that exists for everybody, for both Russia and NATO, and this is the Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Greece’s position, which I expressed to Mr. Minister and I had expressed it also to NATO in the past, is that there is a common enemy and this enemy is terrorism. Therefore, this is the moment for a cooperation that will help us confront this threat together. We, as Russia’s friends and as an EU and NATO member state, we will do anything to this end.”

JOURNALIST: Mr. Minister, would you tell us your opinion about the sanctions against Russia and how they might affect the Greek-Russian relations?

P. KAMMENOS: From the very beginning, the position of the Greek government has been against the sanctions taken against Russia. The Greek government did everything for these sanctions to be lifted to the benefit of every party. The sanction that Europe adopted against Russia affected Europe too. And Greece paid a heavy price with these sanctions. We will try with every capability we have to help in lifting the sanctions to the benefit of Russia and the European Union.