Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Venizelos told journalists following his trilateral meeting with the Foreign Ministers of Cyprus and Egypt and his bilateral meeting with the Foreign Minister of Egypt on Friday that a summit meeting is to be organized with the participation of the three countries as soon as possible.

More specifically, Mr. Venizelos stated the following on September 26:

“Today we had, successively, a bilateral meeting with my Egyptian counterpart and, afterwards, a trilateral meeting with my Egyptian and Cypriot counterparts. This is a configuration that functions very effectively, because Egypt plays a critical role in all the issues of the Arab world and has taken very specific initiatives.

Egypt has contributed to the ceasefire in Gaza and to opening new channels and prospects in Libya, as we also saw from the recent Madrid Conference on Libya. And Greece and Cyprus, within the European Union, supported Egypt from the outset, and we are European countries in the region; countries that are stable and are points of reference.

We have a very rich agenda: Energy issues, issues of the implementation of the Law of the Sea, as well as, mainly, issues that concern the current crises. That is why we decided to hold another meeting very soon, on the ministerial level, in Nicosia, and to organize a Summit Meeting, preferably in Cairo, as soon as possible.”

Asked by a journalist whether there was progress, over last year’s meeting, on the delimitation of maritime zones, the Deputy Prime Minister replied that in
the bilateral part of the meeting with his Egyptian counterpart, they looked at the progress in the work of the technical committees on the delimitation of the maritime zones, within the framework of the International Law of the Sea and agreed that the next meeting of the technical committees would take place as soon as possible – this time, in Athens. He also added that there are very positive indications regarding the stance of the Egyptian side, which is faithful to the implementation of the International Law of the Sea.