The Deputy Minister of National Defence Giannis Kefalogiannis Participates in the Meeting of NATO Defence Ministers

The Deputy Minister of National Defence Giannis Kefalogiannis Participates in the Meeting of NATO Defence Ministers

October 17, 2024

On Thursday, 17 October 2024, the Deputy Minister of National Defence, Giannis Kefalogiannis, participated in the Meeting of NATO Defence Ministers, convened by the Secretary General of NATO Mark Rutte and held in Brussels.

The first meeting was attended for the first time by the Defence Ministers of the four partners of the Indian-Pacific (Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea) and a representative of the European Union. The discussion focused on areas where common challenges and mutual interests exist, whereas views were exchanged on the security situation in the Euro-Atlantic region and the region of the Indian-Pacific.

Next, the Defence Ministers of the Member States signed the following Letters of Intension: "Multinational Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) Fleets for Delivering Critical Capabilities", "Multinational Capacity for Test, Evaluation and Certification of Indirect Fire Munition Interchangeability" and "Distributed Synthetic Training/DST".

Afterwards, a working dinner took place at a NATO-Ukraine Council level, in the presence of the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, accompanied by the Ukraine Defence Minister, Rustem Umerov. During the dinner, a briefing was conducted for the representatives of NATO Member States, on the developments of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

In his interventions, Mr Kefalogiannis, after congratulating the Secretary General of NATO on his new duties, stressed the need for cooperation in global issues like the climate change, dealing with the hybrid threats and the emerging technologies and pointed out that the reinforcement of the joint situation awareness, regarding navigation security and the promotion of navigation freedom, in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) are projected in fields of cooperation. He also mentioned the support of our country to Ukraine and reminded everyone the commitment of Greece to achieve the greater possible international support around the basic rules of International Law, like the national sovereignty, the territorial integrity and the inviolability of international borders.

The Deputy Minister of National Defence participated earlier in a Meeting regarding fighting ISIS, held on the initiative of the U.S. Defence Minister, Lloyd Austin, and which was attended by Defence Ministers of NATO countries, where he pointed out the need for NATO, the European Union, the African Union and the United Nations cooperation.

In the context of the Meeting, the Deputy Minister had a bilateral meeting with the Deputy Commander of Europe Allied Forces (DSACEUR), Admiral Keith Blount.