Pyatt: I didn’t meet with Zoran Zaev, don’t believe everything you read

I didn’t meet with Zoran Zaev, don’t believe everything you see in the press, said U.S. Ambassador to Greece Geoffrey Pyatt, commenting on speculation reported by some Greek media over an alleged meeting between the two in Halkidiki.

A news website published an article with the headline “Zaev and Pyatt spend the weekend in Halkidiki”, writing about “secret meetings” in the peninsulas without implying the prime minister and the ambassador had met. It was re-published by the online editions of several Greek media outlets with an altered headline suggesting the two men had had a secret meeting.

The U.S. Embassy in Athens denied the reports on its official Twitter account, MIA’s Athens correspondent reported.

In an interview with the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA), Ambassador Pyatt said he had spent the weekend in Halkidiki, calling the region ‘beautiful.’

He also referred to the two-day workshop, held last week in Thessaloniki, which brought together journalists from North Macedonia and Greece to discuss challenges when facing disinformation in the two countries.

According to Ambassador Pyatt, it had strengthened the vision promoted by the United States of Thessaloniki being a regional gateway and the role of Greek Macedonia as a partner to North Macedonia helping it pursue EU reforms and consolidating its position in the Euro-Atlantic family, beginning with NATO.  The workshop was very successful, he told ANA-MPA.