“It is a great pleasure to welcome today to Greece and to the Ministry of National Defence the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs of Qatar and dear friend, his Excellency Mr. Khalid bin Mohamed Al Attiyah and his staff.

This is the first official visit by a Defence Minister of Qatar to our country since the establishment of diplomatic relations between our two countries.

I would like to welcome the Deputy Prime Minister and Chief of the Armed Forces.

Qatar plays an important part in the Gulf, the Middle East, and the broader region of Southeast Mediterranean, not only in the energy, but also in the security and stability sectors.

Our country follows the developments in the region with great interest, particularly the issue created within the Gulf Co-operation Council.

This situation saddens and troubles us and, within the framework of our abilities, we are trying to contribute to a solution.

We hope that the issue is resolved as soon as possible, to the benefit of the Gulf states, as well as of security and stability in the region.

Greece and Qatar have always had excellent relations. This year marks the 45th anniversary since the establishment of diplomatic relations in the political and economic, as well as in the defence sectors, with the latter being reinforced during the recent years.

At this point, I would like to stress that, in the middle of the economic crisis, Qatar was perhaps the only country that came to invest in Greece.

Today, we had the opportunity with my dear colleague and friend to exchange very interesting and constructive views on matters of security in Southeast Europe and the broader Middle East and North Africa, as well as on matters of particular interest to our countries.

We also discussed ways to further upgrade our defence co-operation in a constantly changing environment with challenges of all kinds in order to soon have clear and specific results of mutual interest and benefit for peace.

We are ready to expand the co-operation between our defence industries, both state and private, where we have had many successful co-operations and we have also proceeded to new co-operations regarding the training and exchange of Officers between the two countries.

I would like to remind you that, within the framework of the promotion of the Hellenic defence industry, the first Qatari – Hellenic Defence Industry Day Meeting took place last January in Doha.

We are ready to offer training to Qatar, particularly with regard to Air Force aircraft and helicopter pilots. Qatar will be the first country to co-operate with us in the new training centre that will be created in Kalamata in the next few months.

Finally, I would like to thank his Excellency the Minister for his solidarity regarding the issue of the release of the two Greek servicemen held hostage in Turkey since, being aware of the relations between Qatar and Turkey, the Minister, on his own initiative, expressed his interest in acting as a mediator for the release of the two Greek servicemen during our last meeting.”

Furthermore, the two Ministers flew on helicopter over the area of Mati, Attica, that was recently affected by the fires.