Nikos Dendias

New government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis announced the new ministerial cabinet of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday.

Several prominent ministers were shuffled into new positions, including former foreign minister Nikos Dendias assuming the Defense Ministry and former digital governance minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis taking over as education minister.

With the new cabinet of Kyriakos Mitsotakis expected to be announced on Monday afternoon, sources have said that the frontrunners for the post of Foreign and Finance Ministries are Giorgos Gerapetritis and Kostis Hatzidakis, respectively. 

Kyriakos Mitsotakis is expected to shake up his Cabinet after winning Sunday's election in a landslide, moving top conservative cadres and adding new faces to the mix.

Despite his professed intransigence and publicly stated refusal to meet with then-Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan apparently allowed communication between his officials and their Greek counterparts in order to avoid a major crisis between the two countries, Nikos Dendias, foreign minister in the 2019-23 Mitsotakis government, told Kathimerini.

After Albanian Foreign Minister Olta Xhacka met with her Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias last Monday to discuss elected ethnic Greek mayor of Himare Fredi Beleri's jailing on charges of buying votes, she tweeted: "The meeting w/my colleague & good friend FM @NikosDendias in Brussels was a good opportunity to discuss in a frank manner Mr Beleri's case.

The extension of the detention of Fredi Beleri, the recently elected ethnic Greece mayor of Himare in Albania, "is contrary to the common sense of justice and the European concept of the rule of law," the Greek Foreign Ministry underlined in a statement on Monday.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias discussed on Monday the jailing of an elected ethnic Greek mayor with his Albanian counterpart Olta Xhacka, during a meeting in Brussels, the foreign ministry said. 

Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias is scheduled to attend the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) of the European Union in Brussels on Monday, as confirmed by a statement from the Foreign Ministry. The meeting will address several important topics, including Russia's war on Ukraine and the situation in the Horn of Africa region.

Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias has expressed his hope that Turkey will relinquish its revisionist aspirations and actively participate in a meaningful dialogue aimed at resolving lingering disputes with Greece. 

Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias reiterated on Wednesday that the newly elected ethnic Greek mayor of Himare in Albania, Fredi Beleris, must be released and that he does not understand the continuation of his detention.