Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikos Dendias’ statements following his meeting with the Foreign Minister of Oman, Sayyid Badr bin Hamad bin Hamood Al Βusaidi (Muscat, 20 October 2021)

It is a great pleasure to be in Muscat today. I have to say my visit here was long overdue.

Allow me to take this opportunity to congratulate you, dear Minister, your Excellency, on your appointment as the first Foreign Minister of the Sultanate. With your huge experience, I am sure you will do a great job, both for the Sultanate, but also for the region and for the world. And also allow me to extend our heartfelt condolences for the losses the Sultanate suffered as a result of the cyclone Shaheen.

Geographically speaking, our countries may seem a little far away, but they are not; they are just a few hours flight. And as you said, we share many things in common, such as our commitment to upholding International Law, peace, stability, prosperity. We are very much interested, we Greece, as a maritime nation and I am here speaking also to a maritime nation, we care very much for the International Law of the Sea, including the fundamental right of the freedom of navigation.

And in this vein, I would like to announce that Greece will support the candidature of Ambassador Al Azri for his re-election to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

And we do that, because we remain convinced that we should support countries that uphold the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, a Convention that you have signed more than 30 years ago. And which constitutes part of customary International Law.

Greece shares also with you the commitment to the peaceful resolution of disputes through dialogue on the basis of International Law.

And by implementing these principles, we Greece, over the past couple of years, we have agreed and delimited our sea zones with two of our neighbours, Italy and Egypt.

And also we have agreed to defer the issue of delimitation to the International Court of Justice with our neighbour, Albania.

So, in this context, I would like also to commend you also for your mediating efforts in order to resolve disputes in your region and in order to address international challenges, especially here in this very important area of the world.

We attach, as I said before, particular importance to this region and the European Union should attach particular importance to this region.

Ι would like to say that, especially, I have to underline your constructive role in Yemen and the huge efforts you are conducting in order to address especially the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.

I would also like to condemn terrorist attacks against any country in the region, lately against Saudi Arabia, and especially condemn terrorist attacks against civilian targets.

I have to say that we, Greece, besides our bilateral relations with Gulf countries, we have expanded our cooperation with the Gulf Cooperation Council, of which the Sultanate is a proud member. Last April, we have signed the Memorandum of Understanding with the GCC Secretary General and we met a few weeks ago in New York. And I am expecting him in Athens next week. So I hope that you are next after the Secretary General of the GCC.

And as a final remark I would say that I am very happy today that we deepened our bilateral relations by the Memoranda we have signed.

But we have to go forward. These two agreements are testimony of our joint commitment, but also a first step towards future efforts.

And I am very much looking forward to continuing working with you personally and with the Sultanate of Oman in this direction.

Thank you so much for your very kind hospitality.

JOURNALIST: Your excellency, can you please tell us more about the Agreements that you signed today?

N. DENDIAS: Thank you for giving me this opportunity. First of all, we signed an Agreement on Political Consultations. We believe that we and the Sultanate of Oman understand the international relations in a very similar way. And we would like to institutionalise that. That is to have exchanges between the two Ministries which allow us to understand each other, understand the positions and find common grounds on addressing the challenges. And in a way we think that by signing this Agreement today we show our appreciation for the huge efforts of the Sultanate in addressing the crisis in Yemen and in the region.

The second one is in a way a facilitation of the meetings of the diplomats of our two sides. But let me say, we consider this as a first of many steps. We would like to sign an Agreement on facilitating investment between our two countries. We would like to sign an Agreement on double non taxation, because no businessman will invest in both our countries if he or she is going to be taxed two times. We have to do an Agreement on cultural exchanges. You have a very huge and proud tradition. We have a huge and proud tradition. Let’s exchange experience from the past that will be the common ground of the future. Tourism could be something that we could cooperate. So may I say, the sky is the limit.

JOURNALIST: What is the relation between the people of our two countries…(inaudible)

N. DENDIAS: We believe we are not very far away. Sometimes when there is nothing to concentrate our mind, we don’t look to each other eye to eye. We are only a few-hours flight away. We have a huge tourism industry. Every year Greece is being visited by four, five times its own population. So, we would like to encourage Greeks to visit Oman. And also, we would like to encourage Omanis to visit Greece. And we believe that if people get to know each other, and if businessmen get to know each other, and if common experiences are being created and shared between people, then the rest will come axiomatically one by one. There is time to put flesh on the bones of our very good relations.

JOURNALIST: Your excellency, how do you describe trade exchange between the two countries and what are the means of enhancing it?

N. DENDIAS: Let me be frank, the level of our trade is unacceptable. It is less than 25 million euros, it’s not serious.It is the level of trade between two medium-small sized companies, not two countries. And it is our fault, both our countries’ fault. And it’s both our countries’ fault because by having no differences between us, we didn’t look at each other, and we didn’t care about each other. As I said before, we don’t even have a double non taxation Treaty. So how can one expect businessmen to work with each other.

But let’s not look to the past. Let’s look to the future. We have agreed with my dear colleague that I am going to send here my Under Secretary for Economic Affairs and he will look to discuss with the investment authorities of Oman how can we invest in Oman, as Greece, and how can Oman invest in Greece. And then we will arrange business to business meetings.  

We need work, but one thing is certain: that there is huge room for improvement. From where we are now, I think there is so much we can do more, that we could only blame ourselves if we do not achieve it in two or three years from now. Not just to triple but to … ten or twenty times up from where we are. Thank you.