'Greece maintains traditional ties with the Gulf states,' Gerapetritis tells ERT

Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis on Thursday highlighted the fact that "Greece maintains traditional ties with the Gulf States," in a statement to public broadcaster ERT after the conclusion of his visit to Kuwait, with which he concluded a tour of Gulf states.

He said that he had the opportunity to speak with his Kuwaiti counterpart and state organisations that deal with imports, exports and investments by and in Kuwait.

"We jointly ascertained that there are significant margins for increasing our bilateral trade," Gerapetritis said, adding: "We agreed that there should be activities that will aim at agreements for large-scale Kuwaiti investments in Greece and, of course, for an exchange of business delegations."

The minister said the past two days had chiefly served as an opportunity to discuss the grave issue of the Middle East, where he said things were, unfortunately, "not going well". "There are huge problems as regards the peace process and, of course, with every day that passes there is a serious deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the region," he said.

"What we agreed both in Qatar and Kuwait was that we must unite our efforts, Europe together with the Gulf countries and the Arab world, so that there is a specific proposal that will solve the Middle East problem, which will allow the full and unobstructed provision of humanitarian aid to the affected regions and finally solve the issue of the hostages," Gerapetritis noted.

He said he had had an opportunity to stress, as he had done at the European Council in Luxembourg, that the European Union must assume a central initiative that brings together all the parallel efforts being made for peace in the region, under the EU High Representative and a number of member-states foreign ministers, "so that we can finally all sit down together and try to resolve the Middle East problem constructively and creatively, to stop the ongoing humanitarian crisis and prevent a spreading of the conflict, which could happen either in Rafah, or in Lebanon, or in Jordan or the Red Sea and which would have tragic repercussions for humanity."