Alexandroupoli

Inquiries are being conducted after two people were killed and a third injured critically on Friday night after being hit by a train in two separate incidents close to the city of Alexandroupoli in northeastern Greece.

A replica of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, also called the Nike of Samothrace, on display in the Louvre Museum in Paris, will be erected on the namesake northern Aegean island this summer.

According to the deputy regional governor of Evros, Dimitris Petrovic, the marble replica was made by three sculptors in a workshop in the northern Greek town of Drama.

Greece's conservative opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday urged Turkey to end the "illegal detention" of two Greek servicemen arrested in early May for straying into Turkish territory during a border patrol.

"[Turkey] must end the illegal detention of our two officers here and now," Mitsotakis said during a visit to the northern Greek city of Alexandroupoli.

Judicial authorities in northern Greece are investigating the involvement of local lawyers in rackets smuggling migrants and refugees across Greece's Evros River border from Turkey.

One of eight Turkish servicemen who sought protection in Greece in the wake of a botched coup in Turkey in the summer of 2016 was granted asylum on Saturday.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan began the second and final day of his official visit to Greece on Friday with a trip from Athens to Alexandroupoli in Greece's northeastern tip and then to neighboring Komotini in Western Thrace.

His reception by Muslim Greeks at Komotini was more low-key than anticipated, and the Turkish statesman made no statements in the morning.

Greece's state-controlled natural gas firm DEPA signed a cooperation agreement on Thursday with natural gas company Gastrade to participate in the development of a liquefied natural gas terminal in northern Greece, DEPA said.

Greece currently has one LNG terminal on Revythousa, an islet off Athens.

A Super Puma rescue helicopter  was aiding efforts late Friday to find two people who had been aboard a CT2K private plane which took off from Alexandroupoli airport in the afternoon but crashed near Rodopi.

The United States wants to see northern Greece become a gateway for the transportation of natural gas and commodities to the Western Balkans and Europe, US Ambassador in Athens Geoffrey Pyatt tells Kathimerini.

Bulgarian Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova is in Alexandroupoli, Greece, for the first edition of the Forum for Petrol and Gas, organized by the American-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce.

Officials from energy watchdogs, market players, energy experts, entrepreneurs and investors will be discussing together the latest developments in the region's energy projects.