Statement of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nikos Kotzias, following the quadrilateral meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania (New York, 26 September 2018)

20180926_ypex_tetramerisWe just finished the meeting of the four Balkan countries that are member states of the European Union.

We agreed to step up our cooperation, first of all on stabilizing our region. Our plan is for the four of us, together, to visit Albania and North Macedonia by the end of the year to look at how we can help them in their European integration process.
We also agreed to carry out a joint trip to the Middle East at the beginning of next year, to visit a number of states and see how we can help stabilize the Eastern Mediterranean.

Today we are having a number of bilateral meetings with about ten UN member states, including Jordan, Lebanon and so on. And we will also be participating actively in an International Conference on Syria.

This year we extended our meetings to include most of the countries of the Middle East, Latin America and Asia. We are having dozens of meetings, which is indicative of our country’s upgraded role and the international recognition it has received thanks to its initiatives.

September 26, 2018