Evangelos Apostolakis

Defense Minister Evangelos Apostolakis will travel to Crete to assess the damage after the Aegean island was hit by torrential rain and gales causing extensive damage to roads, buildings and infrastructure, the government said Tuesday.

Conservative New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis (second from right) is seen at the Munich Security Conference, which started Friday and is to run through Sunday, with International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde (left) and the leader of Germany's Christian Democratic Union, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.

Regional peace and security are among Greece's key foreign policy objectives, the country's newly-installed Defense Minister Evangelos Apostolakis has said.

Apostolakis was speaking in the wake of a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels during which he held talks with his counterparts from Turkey and North Macedonia, as well as the chief of the transatlantic alliance Jens Stoltenberg.

The defense ministers of Greece and Turkey, Evangelos Apostolakis and Hulusi Akar, said on Wednesday after talks in Brussels that technical teams from both countries will be tasked with drafting a framework of confidence-building measures in a bid to reduce tensions in the Aegean.

The defense ministers of Greece and Turkey met Wednesday on the sidelines of NATO's ministerial summit in Brussels.

The meeting between Evangelos Apostolakis and his Turkish counterpart Hulusi Akar - both former chiefs of their countries' respective armed forces - lasted about 30 minutes.

There was no immediate comment on the meeting.

The defense ministers of Greece and Turkey meet Wednesday in the context of NATO's ministerial summit in Brussels tasked with finding practical ways to reduce tensions between the two neighbors.

In the wake of the visit by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to Turkey, contacts between Athens and Ankara will continue next week in the context of Wednesday's NATO summit of defense ministers, where Evangelos Apostolakis and his Turkish counterpart Hulusi Akar will discuss confidence-building measures.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras meets again with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Tuesday. Such meetings are always useful, as is bolstering the lines of communication between the two neighbors at every level.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is due to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Tuesday, kicking off a two-day visit to Turkey for which Greek diplomats do not hold particularly high hopes.

According to sources, the best-case scenario would be the announcement of a relaunch of exploratory talks or of confidence-building measures between the two sides.

Opposition New Democracy has accused the government of trying to place the armed forces under SYRIZA's control with last week's new leadership appointments.