The Minister of National Defence Panos Kammenos met with the Minister of Defence of the Slovak Republic Peter Gajdos who pays an official visit to Greece.

After the end of the meeting, the Minister of National Defence made the following statement:

“I thank the Minister of Defence of Slovakia and I confirm what he said: that this is a new day for the relations between Greece and Slovakia, two countries which have been sharing common views in the European Union and NATO so far; two countries with common characteristics, common history and long military and diplomatic tradition.

Our cooperation is also related to the bilateral agreement, as Mr. Minister too stated before, for the cooperation of Greece in the structures which Slovakia leads within NATO and European Union and, in parallel, with the participation of Slovakia in exercises and structures that Greece hosts.

We share common concerns regarding the issues of terrorism and migration and we exchanged views about the future of the European Defence.

I believe that the beginning of this cooperation in defence industry is very important. Slovakia has a long defence industry tradition and the cooperation with Greek companies of high technology can lead to prosperity for both peoples.

Also, we will be very close regarding issues of geopolitics in the wider area of the Balkans, Europe and the Mediterranean Sea. And very soon, following an invitation by Mr. Minister, I will be in Slovakia, so we can proceed to sign bilateral agreements which will be sealed by our military leaderships.

Once more, I would like to welcome Mr. Minister and thank him, in particular, for doing us the great honour of visiting Crete and forming, together with his associates, a personal opinion about the Greece’s contribution in the southern area of NATO and, particularly, about Souda Naval Base”.