Visiting Israeli President Reuven Rivlin met with Greece’s main opposition leader on Wednesday a day after an emotional ground-laying ceremony for a Holocaust museum in the northern city of Thessaloniki, as the former was accompanied by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.
As expected, Greek-Israeli relations dominated the agenda in Rivlin’s talks with New Democracy (ND) party Kyriakos Mitsotakis, with the emphasis on strengthening already advanced ties even further.
Of particular importance in the talks was cooperation in the energy, tourism and hi-tech fields.
Additionally, both men underlined the significance of tripartite Greece-Cyprus-Israel cooperation for regional stability and peace.
Other regional issues such as the war in Syria, the Palestinian question and dealing with international terrorism were also discussed, while Mitsotakis expressed his concern over what he called continuing Turkish military provocations in the eastern Aegean.
Rivlin’s attendance at the ceremony in Thessaloniki was particularly noteworthy, as the northern Greece metropolis hosted the world’s biggest Sephardic community prior to World War II, more than 50,000 strong. Practically all of Thessaloniki’s pre-war Jewish community was exterminated in Nazi concentration camps.
