BRUSSELS (ANA/ M. Spinthourakis) Greece's Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias on Monday said he had a "serious and interesting meeting" with the United Nations Secretary-General's Personal Envoy for the Greece-FYROM talks Matthew Nimetz, on the sidelines of the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels. The meeting was held following Nimetz's recent trip to Skopje.
"He briefed me on the climate he found. On my side, I briefed him on how we are thinking, after the meetings we had with the new government of our northern neighbour. We agreed to stay in contact and seek ways in which we can launch a process to find a solution," Kotzias told the press.
The minister noted that there were signs of a constructive attitude from the government in Skopje, at least on a communications level, which must now also become substantive.
Nimetz referred to the existence of new opportunities for the resumption of talks on the naming dispute between Greece and FYROM and declared himself "by nature an optimist" while noting that realistically, nothing was likely to happen in the immediate future. At the same time, he promised to make the best possible effort to "reactivate serious discussion and seek possible solutions."
Asked to comment on his trip to Nicosia, immediately after Brussels, and the fact that his visit to Cyprus will coincide with that of his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu to the occupied territories in the north of Cyprus, Kotzias stated the following:
"He found out I was visiting free Cyprus and decided that he would do the same. He makes a habit of following me. This is not bad, provided he also has the same goals. We go to Cyprus to discuss the continuation of the Conference that was held in Switzerland, the way that we must handle things so that a future negotiation is prepared more correctly and efficiently, to talk about bilateral relations between Greece and Cyprus and issues of security and stability in the region, as well as to discuss EU matters and especially Turkey's course with regard to the EU, specifically customs union."