NATO chief to visit Greece

BRUSSELS, Oct 29 (KUNA) -- NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg will travel to Athens on Thursday for talks with the Greek leadership, the Alliance announced here today.
He will meet Prime Minister Antonis Samaras foreign minister. Evangelos Venizelos and defence minister Dimitrios Avramopoulos, it said in a brief statement.
Stoltenberg visited Greece's neighbour Turkey soon after he became the NATO chief on 1 October.
Speaking at an event organised by the German Marshall Fund in Brussels on Tuesday he commended Turkey's role in dealing with the crises in Syria and Iraq.
"Turkey is doing a lot; because Turkey is receiving hundreds of thousands of refugees. And Turkey is the country most affected by the crisis, the NATO Ally most affected by the crisis in both Iraq and Syria. And therefore, I commend that when I was in Turkey the huge effort Turkey is doing to take care of all the refugees that are coming to their country," he said.
Commenting on the Cyprus problem, he said, "the relationship between Turkey and Greece is a bilateral issue between Turkey and Greece. In addition, NATO is not involved in the efforts to try to find a solution related to the problems we see in Cyprus." Referring to his upcoming visit to Greece, he said "the bilateral issues between two member countries is not something that I want to solve out within NATO, or to address within a NATO framework." (end) nk.mt