Greek main opposition New Democracy (ND) party will participate in the nationwide effort to attract investments from Russia, chairman of the Greek interparliamentary committee on Greek-Russian Friendship Simos Kedikoglou said in an interview with the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS, stressing the importance of developing relations between the two countries in other sectors as well beyond the field of energy.

"We are collaborating with the Southern Aegean regional director Yiannis Mahairidis in organising a very important Greek-Russian conference on Rhodes at the end of the month, even though we represent different political parties," Kedikoglou said.

He noted that "immense mistakes have been made in Greek-Russian relations - the Greek government has practically invalidated the energy agreements for the construction of the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline and the South Stream natural gas pipeline, and is rejecting even exceptionally beneficial proposals".

Kedikoglou said that with the Russian pipelines, Greece would have evolved from a consumer to a player on the energy map, adding that it can still develop collaborations with Russia in photovoltaic and solar panel technologies, and in the privatisation of Ose (Hellenic Rail Organisation), on which, he said, "it still remains unknown why no replies have been made to the Russian proposals of six months ago".

Another area of cooperation, Kedikoglou said, is in real estate, with the automatic issue of five-year Schengen visas to Russian citizens acquiring property in Greece, for which no further deliberation with the EU is required. He said he will table a relevant amendment in Greek parliament on this matter in the immediate future.

Kedikoglou and ND vice president Dimitris Avramopoulos are in Moscow at the invitation of the ruling Russian party "United Russia" for its three-day conference that opened Saturday, which will be attended and addressed by Russian president Dmitri Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin, who heads the United Russia party.

According to the organisers, a cooperation agreement will be signed on Friday between United Russia and six other foreign parties, including ND and Cyprus' AKEL party.