Press release regarding the meeting that the Foreign Minister had with his Israeli counterpart, on the sidelines of the President's visit to Israel
[Video of the doorstep statements made by the two Ministers below]
The Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr Nikos Christodoulides met today, in Jerusalem, with the Foreign Minister of Israel Mr Gabi Ashkenazi, on the sidelines of the working visit of the President of the Republic Mr Nicos Anastasiades to Israel.
At the beginning of their meeting, Mr Ashkenazi, in his remarks to the Media, said, among other things, that «this is my forth meeting with my colleague and friend and I think it reflets the relationship between us.
Last October Israel and Cyprus celebrated 60 years of excellent relations both bilateral and regional. We highly appreciate the Government of Cyprus and the President’s decision to open the skies for tourism to both countries and we are in the process of writing the protocol on how to do it, and for the recognition of the Israeli vaccine protocol. I think it is important.
Cyprus is a very popular destination for Israelis; last year we had 300.000 visitors in your wonderful island.
We will also discuss bilateral issues as well as regional, energy, security, stability and other. One of the issues I would like to discuss with my colleague is the last decision of the Court of the ICC which is outrageous, we are not excepting it and will fight against it.»
On his part Mr Christodoulides said that «it is always a great pleasure to be in Israel and meet my very good friend, my excellent colleague Gabi.
Indeed, this is my second visit to Israel during the pandemic and it is a clear indication of the importance we attach to our geostrategic bilateral relationship.
Today with Gabi we will discuss and will review our bilateral relations and also we will discuss ways to further enhance our bilateral cooperation. At the same time I have to say that recently there were some positive developments in our neighbourhood, the Abraham Accord, the energy forum in Cairo, positive developments. We are going to exchange ideas on how to build on those positive developments in order to turn our neighbourhood, the greater Middle East, into a region of peace, security and stability».