Foreign Minister Karolos Papoulias will go to Madrid Thursday to further advance the European Community’s efforts to resolve the Middle East conflict.
He will be meeting with the Spanish foreign minister, Francisco Fernandez Ordonez, and Foreign Minister Roland Dumas of France.
The three foreign ministers, the so-called “troika,” were asked by their E.C. partners to focus on the Middle East and hold discussions with all parties to the conflict.
They are scheduled to meet with Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir Arafat in Madrid and will visit Jordan, Egypt and Syria on Feb. 11, 12 and 13.
Ordonez, current chairman of the E.C. Council of Ministers, has already visited Israel, as has Dumas, who will succeed him as chairman on July 1.
Papoulias, immediate past chairman of the council, visited Israel in November 1986. Greece is the only E.C. country that has less than full diplomatic relations with Israel. It is considered the most pro-Arab of the 12 member states.
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