US ambassador visits Greece's chief of general defense staff

The chief of the Hellenic National Defense General Staff (GEETHA), Admiral Evangelos Apostolakis, received US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt in his Athens office on Wednesday.

Their meeting focused on developments in the broader region, as well as on the continued detention of two Greek soldiers by Turkish authorities and Greek-American ties, according to an official announcement,

The visit also comes amid an increased US naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, which is seen as a response to Turkey's recent hostility towards hydrocarbon exploration efforts in the region.

Even though the bolstered American presence is mainly due to a planned exercise by the US and Israel, it almost coincides with scheduled drilling in Block 10 of Cyprus's exclusive economic zone by American energy giant ExxonMobil.