Athens, 19 July 2022 (MIA) – Today is a very important day both for Europe and for Greece, Alternate Foreign Minister of Greece Miltiadis Varvitsiotis said after the EU’s first Intergovernmental Conference with North Macedonia and Albania, adding Greece wanted to have European neighbors in the north and once again expressing Greek support for the accession negotiations and their rapid progress. According to MIA’s Athens correspondent, Varvitsiotis in Brussels said the start of the accession negotiations was closing the circle that started in Thessaloniki in 2003. He pointed out Greece wanted “the accession negotiations to progress quickly, giving substance and completion of the key national requirements," such as fully implementing the Prespa Agreement and upholding Greek minority rights in Albania. “It is important for our country to have European neighbors on the northern borders, sharing the same principles and values, sitting at the same table, and of course having impeccable economic and political relations,” Varvitsiotis said. “We welcome the beginning of Albania's and North Macedonia's accession talks with the European Union and declare that with all our strength we will support this difficult, uphill, laborious, but also very beneficial process,” he added. According to his office, the Greek alternate foreign minister personally congratulated the Prime Ministers of North Macedonia and Albania, Dimitar Kovachevski and Edi Rama, thanking the Czech and French EU presidencies for "significantly contributing to removing the deadlock and enabling the first intergovernmental conference in the context of the new enlargement process." Earlier, Varvitsiotis welcomed North Macedonia's start of EU talks in a Twitter post including a photo with Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski. “Congratulations to North Macedonia for holding the first Intergovernmental Conference with the EU. I expressed to Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski the support of Greece in the European perspective of his country. We will work together for our common future,” Varvitsiotis wrote on Twitter. mr/