Greek PM Mitsotakis to visit Libya next week to reopen embassy

Greece reopens its embassy in Libya after over six years. To attend that important event, prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis scheduled to visit the North African country next week.

PM Mitsotakis will travel to Tripoli on Tuesday “to normalize and restore relations,” Greek government spokeswoman Aristotelia Peloni said on Thursday. The top Greece official will be accompanied by Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias.

During the visit to Libya, PM is to meet with the head of Libya’s presidential council, Mohammad Younes Menfi, and interim prime minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah. The visit will signal the Greek embassy’s immediate reopening.

Since July 2014, Greece’s embassy in Tripoli has been closed, while a Greek navy frigate helped to evacuate nearly 200 Greeks and other foreigners from the North African nation, which has plunged into the deepest-ever crisis in 2011 known as the Arabian Spring.

Over the years, Athens is fiercely opposed to the deal between Ankara and Tripoli, which claims much of the Mediterranean for energy exploration, conflicting with rival claims by Greece and Cyprus.