Benjamin Netanyahu press conference – Haim Zach (GPO) May 2023
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Cyprus where he is negotiating new energy cooperation deals including the sale of more Israeli natural gas to Cyprus. Netanyahu was welcomed Sunday by Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides at the Presidential Palace in Nicosia and met privately with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The Prime Minister and his wife Sara had dinner Sunday night with the Cypriot President and Prime Minister.
The two nations are reportedly ready to sign a new energy deal.
At a joint Press coherence with Nikos Christodoulides, Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Western civilization is the result of basically Greek culture (Cyprus is Greek in culture) and Judaism fused together. And that, our commitment to democracy and our common interest in the region—to fight radicalism, to fight terrorism, to fight those who don’t share our worldview and want to destroy our world—the combination of these things has made this association, this partnership, real. And it becomes stronger with each passing year. So number one, I thank you for your friendship.”
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“The partnership between our three countries becomes stronger with each passing year,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu also spoke about the tripartite agreement made by Israel with Cyprus and Greece in 2016. This agreement deals with cooperation between the three nations in matters such as energy, defense and economic cooperation.
Netanyahu went on to speak about the increase in Israeli tourism to Cyprus, the investments made by Israelis to local high-tech there and the growing cooperation in security between the two nations.
On natural gas, Benjamin Netanyahu said, “We’ve been very fortunate, both our countries, in discovering reserves of gas. And we’re talking about how we could cooperate in this. This is something that we’ll continue in the coming months.”
And Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned Israel’s recent aid to Cyprus in fighting wildfires that broke out in the island nation. He linked the ongoing phenomenon of such fires to climate change saying, “The climate isn’t going to get cooler. It’s going to get hotter. And with, you know, with the heating up of our region and the globe, firefighting becomes a really important thing. We can, I think we can do it better together, and that’s obvious and we will.”
The Prime Minister also spoke about his dream for an Asia-Middle East-Europe economic corridor that would go through Israel.
Benjamin Netanyahu said that this will come as part of the extension of the Abraham Accords, and possible normalization with other countries in the region.
“But I’m quite confident that we will have a corridor that could go through Israel, from the Arabian Peninsula, from Asia to the Arabian Peninsula to Israel to Cyprus, and from there to Europe. An example of the most obvious one is a fiber optic connection,” he said. “That’s the shortest route. It’s the safest route. It’s the most economic route.”
