Almost all matters of mutual interest for Greece and Turkey were discussed by the two countries’ Ministers of National Defence, Mr. Panos Panagiotopoulos and Mr. Ismet Yilmaz, at a meeting they had on the sidelines of the NATO Defence Ministers’ Meetings at Brussels.

Mr. Panagiotopoulos underlined with emphasis to his Turkish counterpart that certain activity performed by Turkey in the Aegean does not help at all towards the improvement of an environment of good neighbouring relations and cooperation between the two countries.

After the meeting with his Turkish counterpart, Mr. Panagiotopoulos made the following statement:

“As I have established since the very first moment I assumed my duties as Minister of National Defence in the context of NATO Ministerial Meetings, I meet with several colleagues and we discuss bilateral issues. At a regular basis I do the same with the Turkish Defence Minister Mr. Ismet Yilmaz. It is a habit we repeated here in Brussels and we had the opportunity to discuss with Mr. Yilmaz almost all matters of bilateral interest. In the framework of this discussion, I stressed out to my Turkish counterpart that some activity performed by Turkey in the Aegean does not help at all towards the improvement of an environment of cooperation and good neighbouring relations between the two countries, as we all desire. In other respects, Mr. Yilmaz briefed me on the latest developments in Turkey and, at the same time, we had the chance to exchange views on the developments in our broader region; while we decided that we should maintain the frequency of our bilateral relations”.