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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives in Athens

Featured US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives in Athens

After a week of travelling to Italy, Montenegro and the Republic of North Macedonia, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived on Friday evening at Athens International Airport, where he was welcomed by his Greek counterpart, Foreign Affairs Minister Nikos Dendias. 

Pompeo is scheduled to meet with key Greek officials on Saturday before returning to the US on Sunday. 

The US Secretary of State will first meet with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Maximos Mansion at 10:30 am on Saturday. Dendias and National Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos will also attend the meeting.

Pompeo will then be received by Panagiotopoulos at 11:25 am on Saturday, in the first time the official visits the Greek defense ministry. 

This meeting will be followed with one with Dendias at 12:30 pm on Saturday at the foreign ministry, to discuss issues of bilateral and regional interest and also sign a Mutual Defense Cooperation Agreement (MDCA), before making statements to the press at 14:20. 

At 16:00 on Saturday, Pompeo is scheduled to deliver a speech at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. 

At a special briefing on September 27, a US State Department spokesperson had said that Pompeo will "obviously have lots of things to discuss with our ally Greece, but we are also sort of prepping the 2019 US-Greece Strategic Dialogue, which will formally then take place on Monday, October 7, after the Secretary has departed."