Egypt's foreign minister Sameh Shoukry and his Cypriot counterpart Ioannis Kasoulides discussed in a meeting on Tuesday the launching of the Egypt-Greece-Cyprus Trilateral Summit to boost cooperation, which will take place in Cairo next October, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported. During a press conference in Cairo following the meeting, Shoukry said that the upcoming summit would see discussion of forms of cooperation and carrying out projects in different fields. This will be the fourth meeting held between the three heads of state since the election of Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi as president in 2014. The meeting between Shoukry and Kasoulides tackled updates in trilateral cooperation in the field of energy and maritime border demarcation agreements, the Egyptian FM highlighted. Earlier Tuesday, the Cypriot FM met with El-Sisi, who hailed the trilateral cooperation, saying that it sets a successful model of cooperation for countries in the Mediterranean. El-Sisi stressed Egypt's keenness to further its relations with Cyprus in all fields, praising the progress in cooperation between the two countries. On the bilateral level, the two foreign ministers stressed the importance of current security cooperation between the two countries, adding that it is essential to combat terrorism. The Egyptian FM also said that the two counterparts discussed challenges in the region including the situations in Libya, Syria and the Palestinian Israeli conflict. Also on Tuesday, the Cypriot FM met with Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, where the PM reiterated the importance of further cooperation in various field, especially energy, state-news agency MENA reported. Egyptian cabinet spokesman Hossam El-Qawish said that the meeting tackled a number of joint projects including joint touristic programmes and building fish farms on the coasts. The Cypriot FM denied any claims that the delay in the extradition of the Egyptian man who hijacked a domestic EgyptAir flight earlier this year is politically motivated. The hijacker had requested political asylum in Cyprus, which was rejected. During his two-day visit, which concluded today, Kasoulides met with other top Egyptian officials including Minister of Military Production Mohamed El-Assar and Arab league Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit. In March, Egypt's defence minister Sedki Sobhi and his Cypriot counterpart Christophoros Fokaides signed a joint military cooperation agreement on fighting terrorism and addressing the immigration crisis. Last December, in three-way summit meetings held in Athens, Cairo and Nicosia, the three countries held talks to establish maritime boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean, as well as cooperating in the fields of energy, tourism and agriculture.
