Greece and Israel have agreed to set up within the next two months a joint ministerial council which will be chaired by their respective Prime Ministers and will comprise ministers from both countries, in order to boost their bilateral ties, the Greek news agency ANA reported.
The news came as Israeli Foreign Minister 's Avigdor Lieberman started on Wednesday a 4-day visit in Athens for talks with the Greek leadership.
He met his counterpart Dimitris Droutsas upon his arrival and was also to have talks with President Carolos Papoulias, Prime Minister George Papandreou, Defence Minister Evangelos Venizelos and Minister of State for investment Haris Pamboukis.
He was also to meet with leaders of the Greek Jewish community.
It is the first such visit by an Israeli foreign minister in more than 15 years.
The trip comes after a similar visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in August that underscored a dramatic rapprochement with Greece after decades of frosty relations. Netanyahu's trip was the first time an Israeli head of government had visited to Greece, which has traditionally been pro-Arab and did not recognize the Jewish state until 1991.
During that visit, the two countries reportedly set up a joint committee for strategic and security cooperation to study ways of improving cooperation on strategic and anti-terror issues, Israeli media reports said at the time.
Israel’s Foreign Minister's visit comes as diplomatic ties between Israel and neighbouring Turkey continued to fester following an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla of activists in May last year in which nine Turks were killed.
Israeli and Greek officials have made a show of saying their closer ties were not tied to the diplomatic crisis with Ankara, a traditional rival of Athens.
According to political observers in Athens, Greece is keen to boost international investment and ease its financial crisis, maintains traditionally close relations with Arab countries but has forged closer military and economic ties in recent years with Israel.
The countries' air forces have held joint drills over the past two years in Greece.
"We will continue efforts to bring the two countries even closer," Lieberman said."Improving economic co-operation is a challenge for the coming year."
The first joint cabinet meeting will be held in Israel.
Lieberman also announced that the two countries agreed to set up a regional force to deal with natural disasters, after Israel struggled to contain deadly wildfires in the north of the country which killed at least 40 people and forced mass evacuations last month.
"We have agreed to form a group to deal with emergency disasters," Foreign Minister he said following talks with his Greek counterpart Dimitris Droutsas.
Greece has taken on the initiative to organize the regional force and has invited the relevant authorities of the Palestinian Authority and other countries in the region such as Turkey, Egypt and Jordan to join the effort.