Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met with French President Francois Hollande and Egyptian President Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi on the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony of the new Suez Canal expansion in Egypt Thursday. During Tsipras’s and Hollande’s meeting the two leaders agreed that both the Greek government and the institutions should comply with all commitments undertaken in the July 12 EU-19 Summit deal.

They also expressed their optimism regarding the progress of talks between Athens and the representatives of the institutions stressing that a deal could be reached before August 15. The 50bn Asset Fund was also one of the issues discussed during their talks. It should be noted that the way the Fund will operate has been a matter of discord between Athens and the institutions, especially how and who will run it and whether privatizations already under way with the previous Fund will be included in the new one.

Tsipras’s talks with Egyptian President al-Sisi revolved around matters of bilateral economic and maritime cooperation, while the two leaders decided to initiate contacts between Egyptian and Greek officials for the purpose of promoting the involvement of Greek businesses in the Suez canal. The two men decided to hold a trilateral meeting between Greece, Egypt and Cyprus on the matter of defining the exclusive economic sea zones of the countries in the Mediterranean.