MOSCOW, Dec 7 (AFP) - Greek Prime Minister Costas Caramanlis arrived here Tuesday ahead of talks with President Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian political and religious leaders focusing on bilateral cooperation in the fight against terrorism and other issues, officials said.
Caramanlis, who was accompanied by deputy foreign ministers Yannis Valinakis and Panayotis Skandalakis, was scheduled to meet Putin on Thursday and a Russian official said accords to be signed during the visit included a statement of cooperation in fighting terrorism.
"Russia and Greece regularly exchange views on a wide range of issues in the political, economic, scientific-technical and cultural areas," foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko told ITAR-TASS news agency ahead of Caramanlis' arrival in the Russian capital.
The trip was the first to Russia by the conservative Greek leader since he came to power last March and was aimed, according to a Greek spokesman, at "expanding bilateral relations for the good of both countries."
In addition to his talks with Putin, Caramanlis was due to mee Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, the speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament, Sergei Mironov, and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexei II.
In addition to issuing a statement on terrorism cited by the Russian spokesman, a Greek official, Theodore Roussopoulos, said the two countries would sign agreements on cooperation on economic, trade and transport issues as well as deals on telecommunications, energy and arms.
He provided no specifics.
In an interview with ITAR-TASS published on Monday, Caramanlis defended a plan for construction of an oil pipeline to ship crude from the Caspian Sea via the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossisk to the Greek port of Alexandroupolis, a route that would reduce shipping traffic in the Bosphorus Straits.
That plan faces competition from another route backed by a foreign consortium that would end instead in an Albanian port in the Adriatic Sea.
12/07/2004 17:29 GMT - AFP