FM Gerapetritis: ‘Our concern is to maintain & strengthen strategic relationship with Egypt’

Egypt is a country with which Greece “maintains traditional ties, a country that is Greece’s strategic partner, and with which we have developed excellent bilateral relations in recent years,” Greek Foreign Affairs Minister George Gerapetritis said on Friday, after concluding his meetings in El Alamein with his counterpart Sameh Shoukry.

Gerapetritis was part of a delegation accompanying Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on his visit to Egypt for talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Thursday, and Shoukry had invited him to extend his visit by one day in order to continue discussions at ministerial level, diplomatic sources said earlier on Friday.

The two ministers held a working breakfast earlier on Friday as a follow-up to the discussion held between the Greek and Egyptian delegations on Thursday. After the conclusion of meetings on Friday, Gerapetritis said that on Thursday the two countries had discussed among others issues related to the electric power connection between Egypt and Greece – which will provide Greece and Europe with energy differentiation and independence – and creating collaborations to deal with climate change.

Greece and Egypt also discussed their collaboration in multilateral groupings, especially in the trilateral one with Cyprus, “which is very important for us and which we will expand further in the near future,” the Greek minister said.

In Friday’s meetings, Gerapetritis said discussion extended to regional issues of Africa, the Middle East and the East Mediterranean, in which both countries “agree in nearly all issues, and we agreed to coordinate our practices in order to produce better results in a coordinated way at international fora.” He and Shoukry will also trade official visits in the near future and meet in the framework of the upcoming UN General Assembly meeting in New York. “Our concern is to maintain and strengthen this strategic relationship we have with Egypt,” the Greek FM said.

In conclusion, the Greek minister said, Egypt and Greece share common roots and traditions, and, naturally, a common philosophy on our bilateral and multilateral issues.”

source:amna.gr