PRESIDENT Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi flew to Athens on Tuesday to attend a trilateral summit with the Greek and Cypriot presidents. Upon his arrival, Al-Sisi met Greece's President Prokopis Pavlopoulos and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. He is also scheduled to meet with the Greek minister of national defence, Panos Kammenos. They are expected to discuss military and security relations in light of current challenges in the region. Al-Sisi was invited to Greece by Pavlopoulos to attend the trilateral summit with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades on 9 December. The trilateral summit between Egypt, Greece and Cyprus, held on a periodic basis, promotes strategic and historic relations, broadens future cooperation, and strengthens the longstanding and historic friendship between the three countries, according to Ambassador Alaa Youssef, the official presidential spokesman. “Cooperation on energy issues is the main subject in the three-day talks in Athens,” Youssef said. The summit is part of an ongoing programme of regular summits aimed at encouraging cooperation on strategic matters across the board, including agreements signed between the nations. The leaders hope to reinforce agreements reached at the first trilateral summit, held in Cairo in November 2014, and the second, hosted by Cyprus in Nicosia in April 2015. “The summit is expected to realise joint interests and strengthen longstanding relations between the three countries, which have been developing remarkably well in various areas of cooperation,” Youssef said. The three sides are expected to address ways to promote security and stability in the region. They will also discuss regional security developments, including weapons proliferation and the repercussions of terrorism in the Middle East and the Mediterranean region. The ongoing refugee crisis was also on the table. Al-Sisi was scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting with Anastasiades on the sidelines of the trilateral summit to exchange views on ways of enhancing bilateral cooperation.
