ATHENS, Greece-Greece denied on Thursday that talks to join the U.S. visa waiver program have suffered a set back, despite recent comments to that effect by a senior American security official.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Giorgos Koumoutsakos said the talks were ongoing and that a U.S. assessment team was due in Athens "in the next few months" to continue negotiations.

"The bilateral deliberations are ongoing. ... Greece has completed all the requirements and the criteria," Koumoutsakos told The Associated Press.

On Wednesday, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Richard Barth said Greece had fallen behind other countries seeking to join the program which would allow their citizens to travel to the United States without visas. Barth made the comments during a hearing at the Committee on Foreign Affairs at the U.S. House of Representatives.

U.S. officials have suggested that talks with Greece have been complicated by European Union objections to individual member states negotiating with the United States.

European Commission negotiators want to start a new round of talks to persuade U.S. authorities to include all EU member states in the U.S. visa waiver system.

"We are in touch with the European Union, but the process goes on, on the bilateral level," Koumoutsakos said. "In the next few months, a new expert team from the United States will visit Greece within the framework of these ongoing efforts."

He said it would be the third such visit by an American delegation.

Eight countries have signed provisional agreements with the United States to eventually join the program: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovakia, Malta and South Korea.

Greece has not yet signed the memorandum of understanding.

At Wednesday's congressional hearing, Democratic Rep. Robert Wexler, the chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs' subcommittee on Europe, urged the U.S. government not to leave Greece "pushed back to the end of the line."

"This delay is unacceptable," Wexler said, describing Greece as "an important NATO ally that has met all of the program requirements."