President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi hosted a meeting last week with Cypriot President NicosAnastasiades and Greek Prime Minister KyriakosMitsotakis in Cairo. This is the most recent summit between the three countries' leaders aimed at forming an energy-based alliance in the east Mediterranean.
During the meetingthe European leaders said that Egypt is a strategic partner for the European Union and that Cyprus and Greece would work to strengthen EU-Egypt relations, with all three leaders vowing to step up efforts to tackle illegal migration across the eastern Mediterranean and hone their anti-terrorism tactics.
The three countries agreed to broaden "strategic cooperation" on energy, including joint strategies on the transport of the newly found gas in the region and linking the electricity grids of Europe and North Africa via an undersea cable.The proposed 2,000 megawatt cable, known as the EuroAfrica Interconnector, is planned to stretch nearly 1,000 miles from Greece to Egypt through Cyprus.
Egypt, Cyprus, and Greece also jointly condemnedthe "unlawful and unacceptable" bid by Turkey to drill inside waters where Cyprus has exclusive economic rights, in addition to condemning Turkey's military offensive into northeastern Syria.