ATHENS – Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will brief the political party leaders over the phone on the results of his meeting with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, government spokesperson Yiannis Oikonomou said during a press briefing on Monday. Economou said that the prime minister has been diagnosed with coronavirus and will work from home in the coming days, adding that he had previously spoken on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Regarding the meeting with the Turkish president, he said that it lasted more than two hours and that the climate was very good. During the meeting, the firm positions of both countries were presented, but without the intensity and sharpness of the rhetoric of the recent period. He said that the meeting was a foundation for a substantial improvement in the climate between the two countries and that there was agreement regarding the need to de-escalate the tension, given that stability in the Southeastern Mediterranean is in the interests of both countries at this juncture.

“We do not need to create tension, and we will work together wherever there can be cooperation,” Economou said, adding that the emphasis was on a positive agenda, especially in the economy, and that the two countries had spoken as two countries faced with the challenges posed by the new security architecture in Europe, following the invasion of Ukraine.

If things continue to unfold in the same spirit as the meeting, Oikonomou added, then the 5th High-Level Cooperation Council will take place in Thessaloniki in the autumn, while the meeting on the Confidence Building Measures will be held in Ankara next month.

Referring to the informal European Council, he said that the prime minister is playing a leading role on a European level, in order to find common solutions to the energy problems.