Statements of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nikos Dendias, following his meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Jordan, Ayman Safadi (Amman, 19 December 2019)

N. DENDIAS: Today, Amman was the last stop on a very useful tour of countries of the Middle East and the Arabian Gulf. My counterpart  and I had extensive talks on the broader issues of the region and our bilateral relations, and we agreed to convene the trilateral meeting between Greece, Jordan and Cyprus in the first quarter of 2020, in Athens.

JOURNALIST: Minister, following these visits you have been carrying out since Monday, is Athens in a better position in its efforts to invalidate the memorandum between Turkey and Libya? And I’d like to ask whether there will be follow-up initiatives? Today we learned that there will be a meeting of teams of experts with Italy.

N. DENDIAS: I think you always have the advantage in life if you are right and have common sense on your side. I think Turkey has become involved in a contest it can’t win. Nevertheless, we will continue our effort. We will continue to explain our position in a serious and composed manner, and I think we will succeed in the end.

JOURNALIST: Will there be a follow-up with Italy?

N. DENDIAS: Obviously we will be following up with Italy. We postponed our meeting so that there could first be a meeting of experts, to see what points we agree on and perhaps some points of disagreement, so that we can bridge these differences on a ministerial level and guide the negotiations to a speedy conclusion.

Thank you.