Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is scheduled to go to Athens next week, sources in the Prime Minister’s Office said on Tuesday, adding that this will be the first ever visit by an Israeli premier to Greece.
The visit, coming three weeks after Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou visited Israel, is a testament to the rapidly warming ties between the two countries, and – according to sources – is not disconnected to the tension between Israel and Turkey, Greece’s long time adversary.
“This trip shows the new dynamism in the relationship between Israel and Greece,” one diplomatic official said. In addition to meeting Papandreou in Israel last month, Netanyahu also coincidentally met him at a Moscow restaurant during a visit there in February.
The Prime Minister’s Office would neither confirm nor deny speculation that among the issues that will be discussed will be the possibility of an agreement on allowing Israeli jets to train in Greek skies.
Before his visit last month, one Israeli official said that Greece, once considered among the harshest critics of Israel inside the EU, along with countries such as Ireland, Sweden, Portugal and Belgium, was no longer in that “basket.”
In addition to their meetings over the last year, Netanyahu and Papandreou have spoken a number of times by phone, since some of the ships trying to break the blockade of Gaza have left from Greek ports.
(source: jpost)
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