Combined images of (From L to R) Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Cyprus s President Nicos Anastasiades.
El-Sisi called Anastasiades on Sunday to extend his appreciation for the outgoing president’s support towards the strategic relations between the two countries during his tenure, Egyptian Presidential Spokesman Ahmed Fahmy said in a statement.
Anastasiades stressed Cyprus’s commitment to continue enhancing their strategic partnership with Cairo under the leadership of the newly elected Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides.
On Twitter, Anastasiades said he reiterated to El-Sisi his "deepest appreciation for our close and fruitful cooperation which has led to the advancement of our relations at all levels and sectors."
For his part, El-Sisi said Anastasiades’s tenure witnessed many important achievements at the bilateral level and also at the trilateral level with Greece.
Anastasiades, Cyprus’s seventh president, had served in the position since 2013 until he was succeeded by former Foreign Minister Christodoulides in February elections.
In mid-February, El-Sisi congratulated Christodoulides for winning the presidential elections in a phone call, where they expressed their wish to enhance strategic partnership in the upcoming period.
During Anastasiades’s term, Egypt and Cyprus have been keen to enhance their bilateral cooperation and also their trilateral cooperation with Greece in various fields, especially regarding the economy and energy.
Both Egypt and Cyprus are members of the EastMed Gas Forum, a Cairo-based international organisation that aims to establish a regional gas market in the Eastern Mediterranean and enhance trade relations among member states.
In October 2021, Egypt also signed an accord with Cyprus on linking the two countries electricity transmission networks and an agreement with Greece on an undersea cable that will transmit power from North Africa to Europe.
Egypt, Cyprus and Greece have held several tripartite summits over the past several years, the last of which was in October in Athens, to enhance tripartite cooperation in various fields, at the top of which is energy.
During the summit, the three countries signed a trilateral agreement on power linkage to establish power pipelines linking Africa with Europe.
Egypt, Greece and Cyprus have also shared similar visions on a number of regional issues, and have repeatedly stressed the need for holding elections in Libya and rejecting Turkey’s oil explorations in recent years inside Cypriot territorial waters.
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