The Secretary-General of NATO has taken an initiative to decrease tension in the Eastern Mediterranean and to prevent any undesired incidents between air and naval units.

This initiative, which is also supported by Turkey, refers to the initiation of military-technical meetings between the two countries within NATO, as the Secretary-General announced today.

These meetings focused on de-confliction are indeed related to the arrangements addressed previously on a bilateral level between the military authorities of both countries. They are not related to the outstanding bilateral issues between Turkey and Greece. We expect Greece to support this initiative of the Secretary-General of NATO.

On the other hand, we would like to remind once again on this occasion that Turkey is ready to enter into dialogue with Greece without any preconditions, in order to find lasting, fair and equitable solutions to all outstanding issues between Turkey and Greece within the framework of international law.