Greece, Cyprus and Egypt agree on trilateral summit at foreign ministers' meeting in NY

After the meeting late on Friday, the three sides announced their common will and intention to hold a trilateral summit for Greece, Cyprus and Egypt in Cairo as soon as possible and said their next meeting on a foreign ministers' level will be held in Nicosia.
Venizelos, who also met Shoukry prior to the trilateral meeting with Kasoulides, said the trilateral configuration was an "exceptional tool for political cooperation" between the three sides and called Egypt a key country for anything having to do with the Arab world.

"We have seen very specific proof of this in recent weeks, with the ceasefire in Gaza and the Egyptian initiatives in Libya. The role of Greece and Cyprus, as EU member states, in the stability of the wider region is always very important. From this perspective, our trilateral cooperation is a platform for stability in the wider region," he said.

Talking to journalists after the joint statements, Venizelos said the three country had a "very rich agenda" of issues to discuss, which related to energy, implementing the Law of the Sea and especially 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," he explained.

The minister said that Greece has been invited by Egypt and Norway to a Donors' Conference for the reconstruction of Gaza to be held in Cairo on October 12, noting that this was "important as a prerequisite for the reopening of the dialogue in the Middle East on a solution to the Palestinian problem, which underlies all the problems in the region."

On the delimitation of maritime zones, Venizelos said that this was examined in the bilateral part of the meeting with his Egyptian counterpart.
"We 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 we agreed that the next meeting of the technical committees would take place as soon as possible – this time, in Athens. And we have very positive indications regarding the stance of the Egyptian side, which is faithful to the implementation of the International Law of the Sea," he replied to reporter's questions.

He also replied to questions on Greece's aid to the Kurds, saying that Greece had not been asked to provide anything other than ammunition by its allies and stressing that this participation by Greece was voluntary and given to boost the country's international credibility:

"You can see that, for the international and regional balance of power, for Greece's credibility, for the protection of national interests, for our having a strong position in the Cyprus issue, in Greek-Turkish issues – so that we can defend our own issues, which are always at the core of our policy – we have to have international credibility. And this is what we are trying to do, through diplomatic and political means, with humanitarian assistance, as well as through sending ammunition to the Kurdish forces in Iraq, in cooperation, of course, with the government in Baghdad, because this was something that could be done easily."

This was the recommendation from the Hellenic National Defence General Staff and the Ministry of National Defence, Venizelos added, and was judged by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and himself to be very important in terms of the regional balance of power and the protection of national interests.