Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew for about one hour in Turkey and they stressed the need to confront the violence and to promote the interfaith dialogue.

Mr. Tsipras stressed also the need for cooperation with Turkey highlighting that the issue is very high on the discussions agenda that he will have in Ankara later today.

“Both countries can cooperate and coordinate to stop the drama of the people who are drown every day a few metres off the coasts and deal with this humanitarian problem” Greek Prime Minister said.

The Ecumenical Patriarch referred to his meetings on Tuesday in Brussels with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Parliament President Martin Schulz and the European Union’s Foreign Policy chief Federica Mogherini to whom he announced that in the first six months of 2016 a meeting with representatives of monotheistic religions will be held in Brussels in order to discuss the condition in the region. The European officials proposed the meeting to be broader with representatives of other religions, too and Bartholomew said that this meeting could be held in parallel.