N. KOTZIAS: I am very thankful to Mohamed and to Mr President for the hospitality. The people of Libya and Greece have a very long, common history, many common elements in their culture and in their civilization. Today I talked with the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister of Libya about our cooperation in many sectors, about cooperation on economic goals we have set together, the training of the coastguard of Libya, the creation of networks with universities, research centres.
The core of our discussion was the cooperation between our two Ministries, specifically in areas that concern European integration. We have invited groups of people from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Libya to visit Greece, to use our knowledge and expertise on issues concerning the European Union. We discussed the situation in our region and our common interests in security and stability in the Mediterranean. I invited my colleague to come to Athens. It would be a great pleasure to have him with us. And once again I would like to express how thankful I am for this invitation today and the opportunity I was given to visit Libya.
JOURNALIST: Question on Greek-Libyan relations.
N. KOTZIAS: First, I have to mention that in 2017 we intend to reopen our embassy here in Tripoli. Second, about Egypt, we have a very long standing, friendly relationship with this country’s people. As I always say to our European and American friends, we are linked with all these countries in the Mediterranean region by about 5 to 7 thousand years of common history. We have done everything with them: wars, peace, treaties, conferences. Every kind of feeling, every kind of action.
Nowadays we are friends and we try to be friends with all of these countries. It’s a win-win situation. Everybody wins because we are friends with all of them, we are always here to help and to facilitate the relations between countries whether they are friendly or not. We can be a very useful actor and friend for everybody, for Egypt, for Libya and we can be very useful for the stability and security in the region. But we can also be a good advocate of Libya and Egypt. Regarding Libya –we discussed this today too – we also examined Libya’s relations with the European Union. You know the parents, mothers and fathers, they sometimes have not just one child but many children and they love all of them. So we can love everybody here in the area.
JOURNALIST: What is the point of view of Greece regarding the political agreement inside Libya?
N. KOTZIAS: We are friends of Libya and we are supporting everything that is bringing peace and stability in this country. And that’s the reason why we are supporting the government of Libya.
November 28, 2016