The Madbouly government is working to up Greek investment to Egypt and remove any obstacles for the country’s investors, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said during talks with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias in Athens yesterday, according to a statement.
The two sides also discussed their joint energy projects, which include the 3-GW Greece-Egypt Interconnector (GREGY) led by Greek contractor Copelouzos Group, as well as cooperation on renewables and green hydrogen. They also touched on regional energy cooperation through the tripartite cooperation mechanism with Cyprus and the East Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF).
It’s official: Shoukry is spending the weekend in Turkey. “I will visit Ankara in two days to carry on the efforts we’ve started to normalize relations,” Shoukry confirmed at a presser in Greece (watch, runtime: 11:42.) Turkey’s top diplomat pledged with Shoukry to put aside their differences and normalize relations during talks in Cairo last month, after they became the first senior diplomats to visit each others’ countries in over a decade.
THE REALIGNMENT- Could Greece and Turkey make up? “Greece is always looking for ways to have honest and sincere cooperation with Turkey,” Dendias said following his talks with Shoukry, AP reports. He also implied that Greece could consider allowing Turkey to participate in the EMGF — “on one obvious condition: Respect for international law, and respect for the international law of the sea.”
SOUND SMART- Energy resources have long been a point of tension between Greece and Turkey. A recent dispute over maritime borders in the oil and gas-rich East Med saw sharp words exchanged between EMGF members Greece and Egypt on the one side, and non-members Turkey and Libya on the other.