CIA Director Visits Athens For Talks With Greek Intelligence Officials - Reports

ATHENS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 01st June, 2023) CIA Director William Burns visited Athens on Tuesday and held a series of meetings with Greek intelligence officials, daily newspaper Ta Nea reported on Thursday.

Sources said that the meetings were nonpublic, but were particularly productive and the CIA director, who left Greece Wednesday morning for the next leg of his tour, was thoroughly satisfied, the Greek news outlet added.

The sources also said that Burn's visit to Athens was the first trip by a CIA director in 11 years and reflected the real strengthening and consolidation of Greek-American relations, which have moved to an entirely different level.

The newspaper added that the United States believed they had a reliable partner who they could work with and who could be trusted.

Greece's role has become particularly important from a geostrategic point of view and for NATO since it turned into a center of "supply logistics" for the army, while the US now has eight bases on Greek soil, in which it invested millions of Dollars, the daily reported.

Given this, Athens has become an important and, above all, "predictable" ally on which they could rely. Greece's role and relations with both Israel and the middle East were also noted; this, along with its participation and contribution to NATO, made it a state worthy of respect, the newspaper said.

Media reported that former US President Barack Obama would visit Athens in June to participate in the Stavros Niarchos Foundation's SNF Nostos Conference.

Greece and the United States amended the Mutual Defense Cooperation Agreement between Greece and the United States in 2019 and 2021 to provide the US with new military bases on Greek territory. Until 2019, the US had one military base in Greece.

The Greek government has stated that it wants an American military presence in its country.