Greek prime minister George Papandreou had a telephone discussion Tuesday night with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu, during which they agreed to set up a joint Greece-Israel ministerial council and also discussed the next steps in the procedure of enhancing their bilateral ties that was commenced last summer.

The ministerial council, which will be chaired by the two prime ministers, will comprise ministers from both countries, for the purpose of boosting Greece-Israel cooperation in specific sectors.

The first meeting of this new inter-state body is planned sometime in the next two months, and has been assigned by the prime ministers to their respective foreign ministers, Dimitris Droutsas of Greece and Avigdor Lieberman of Israel, who begins a two-day visit to Athens on Wednesday.

Lieberman's visit is in reciprocation of a visit by Droutsas to Israel last October.

The two ministers will meet at 13:30 on Wednesday and are expected to review bilateral cooperation, as a continuation of the agreement they had signed for the deregulation of charter flights and the agreement on cooperation and exchanges between the two countries' diplomatic academies.

The Israeli official is also expected to discuss energy cooperation issues, as well as regional issues, with Iran and the Middle East issue as the focus, in planned meetings with President Karolos Papoulias, Prime Minister George Papandreou and Defence Minister Evangelos Venizelos.