Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday afternoon met in Athens with a couple of top Trump administration Cabinet members – Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright – who arrived in the country for the 6th Partnership for Transatlantic Energy Cooperation (P-TEC) meeting on Thursday and Friday.

Mitsotakis, flanked by new US ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle and Greek Energy Minister Stavros Papastavrou, underlined what he called the strategic nature of Greece-US relations, especially in the energy sector, and reiterated what he termed as a common volition to reinforce this cooperation. He also focused on energy security for central and eastern Europe.

The Greek side again pointed to the LNG terminals of Revithousa and Alexandroupolis and development of a vertical energy corridor extending north all the way to Moldova and Ukraine. He also touched on the strategic significance of Greek-owned shipping for the transport of LNG, while citing the simultaneous presence of ExxonMobil and Chevron in off-shore hydrocarbon exploration in Greek waters as a vote of confidence from the other side of the Atlantic.

The high-ranking US delegation in Athens for the meeting includes Michael Rigas, the acting Administrator of the General Services Administration, as well as Jacob Helberg, the Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, both of whom were at the Maximos Mansion meeting on Wednesday with Mitsotakis and the Greek delegation.

Other participants from the US included top executives of the Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and Export-Import Bank (EXIM).