Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met with the United States Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, at Maximos Mansion.
During the meeting, the excellent level of Greek-American relations was confirmed, while strengthening cooperation in the energy sector was discussed.
The Prime Minister stressed the strategic nature of Greek-American relations and defense and energy cooperation between Greece and the US.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis pointed out that Greece, with the initiatives it has undertaken and the infrastructure it is developing, is becoming an energy hub in the Eastern Mediterranean and Southeast Europe, an energy exporter and a provider of energy security for the entire region.
The Prime Minister emphasized the strategic importance of electrical and digital interconnections, making special reference to the Great Sea Interconnector and GREGY Interconnector projects.
He also informed Mr. Burgum of the importance of a route connecting Alexandroupolis with Odessa, following a proposal he had made during his visit to Odessa in June.
During the meeting, the role of Greek shipping in LNG transportation was also discussed.
At the beginning of their meeting, the Prime Minister and the US Secretary of the Interior had the following dialogue:
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Let me start by welcoming you to Athens. Your presence here today coincides with the anniversary of 9/11. Of course, this is a very emotionally charged day. Let me start by expressing my horror and dismay about the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk. Political violence has no place in our democracy and freedom of speech needs to be protected at all costs.
But you come at a very interesting time. I think it’s an opportunity to reconfirm the strategic partnership between our two countries, but also to focus in particular on energy and energy cooperation. I think it’s a very interesting coincidence that you come a day after Chevron officially expressed its interest to start exploratory work in the area south of Crete, thus confirming the sovereign rights of the Hellenic Republic in that area.
We are also quite happy about the fact that we can speak about the regional role of Greece as a pillar of energy security for the broader region. We are now a country that exports natural gas. We’re a big hub for importing and exporting gas into the region. We’re exporting electricity, we’re exporting oil products, and this makes us a very strong player in the Eastern Mediterranean.
And we’re further looking to strengthen this partnership between our two countries, I think to the benefit of both our people. So again, welcome to Greece.
Doug Burgum: Well, Mr. Prime Minister, on behalf of President Trump and the Trump administration, the United States of America, I want to say thank you for hosting us today. We agree with your aspirations. The United States sees Greece as a strategic partner. We think that the relationships that we have today can grow and expand, particularly around energy and energy security.
The Trump administration has a couple of goals relative to energy, and one of those is energy abundance, sell energy to our friends and allies so they do not have to buy from our adversaries. The North-South Corridor, the role that Greece, with its long history in shipping, access to water, with the pipeline system that runs north of here, there’s so many opportunities for participation by Greek companies and by the country of Greece to participate in this energy security for the Eastern Europe and for the Southeastern Europe. We’re very excited about the opportunities there.
Of course, the United States is fully committed to replacing Russian gas with US gas. There is literally hundreds of billions of dollars being spent in our country on both the production and the exporting of LNG. This represents one of the many opportunities for partnership between our two countries.
