ATHENS — Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias on Friday held a telephone conversation with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in the presence of Defence Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos, according to a foreign ministry post on Twitter.

The conversation was held ahead of the upcoming NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels.

They discussed the reaching of an agreement for the establishment of a 24-hour open line between the military operations centres at the Greek and Turkish defence ministries, diplomatic sources said.

In this context, Stoltenberg asked whether it would be useful to have a brief meeting between the two countries' foreign ministers on the sidelines of the NATO meeting in Brussels next week.

Dendias briefed Stoltenberg that arrangements have been made, provided the appropriate conditions exist, for him to visit Ankara on April 14 and meet his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, the same sources said.

In the light of this development, he said that for practical and symbolic reasons it would be desirable that the bilateral meeting between the two ministers precede the NATO meeting, adding that after the meeting and depending on its outcome, a meeting between the two ministers (Dendias and Cavusoglu) and the NATO chief should be held at a date decided later.