Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias outlined his vision for the creation of an organization for security and cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean on the first day of the second international Conference for Security and Stability on the southeastern Aegean island of Rhodes.
In his address to the participants from 19 countries at the conference, Kotzias said the purpose is the creation of a security structure in the Eastern Mediterranean that will gradually expand further south and east.
For the second year running, the conference included European and Arab countries but not countries like Turkey as Athens has said that it wants the meetings to have a positive agenda and not be a forum for recycling regional differences.
Kotzias said the only way to deal with the region’s challenges, such as migration flows and the safety of sea and new energy routes, is through respect of international law and the law of the sea without the baseless revision of treaties.
