Μake us preferred on Google Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will travel to Egypt on Tuesday, September 8, for talks with President Abdel Fattah al Sisi. The visit which was first reported by TA NEA was kept under wraps. and according to the newspaper’s reporting it is partly intended as a signal that Athens and Cairo maintain an open channel of communication during a turbulent period for the wider region.
The two leaders are set to meet in El Alamein, the coastal city west of Alexandria best known as the site of a pivotal World War II battle between Allied and Axis forces in North Africa. According to TA NEA, the visit may extend beyond bilateral talks into an impromptu three way meeting, as Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides is also expected to travel to El Alamein for informal discussions involving all three countries.
The Occasion
The trip was prompted by an international air show that is being organized by the Egyptian government, according to TA NEA. But the timing places the meeting against a backdrop of developments that Greek officials are following closely. Chief among them is the recently signed defense arrangement between Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, known as the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement. Turkey has also pushed, at times publicly, for Egypt to join the pact. The last few months and weeks, there has been a renewed period of diplomatic friction between Athens and Ankara, rooted in the two countries’ longstanding disagreement over how to delineate maritime zones in the Aegean Sea, along with upcoming developments such as the Greece Cyprus electricity interconnector, in which the French company Meridiam now has a strengthened role.
Greek officials believe Egypt is unlikely to join the Mecca Pact for now, given Cairo’s desire to keep its regional role strong, but the topic is expected to come up in the talks regardless, according to the report.
Frequent Contacts in Recent Months
The visit to Egypt, will follow a series of exchanges between the two governments this year. Mitsotakis and Sisi spoke on the phone in early August, while Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis has been in constant contact with his Egyptian counterpart, Badr Abdelatty, over the past two months. The calls reportedly focused on deepening strategic cooperation and regional security, along with bilateral ties in energy and investment and the broader three way framework linking Greece, Egypt and Cyprus.
Once the details of the Egypt trip are finalized, according to TA NEA discussions are expected to cover a wide range of regional issues, including Turkey, Libya, migration management and talks over an agreement between the Monastery of Sinai and the Egyptian state, which are said to be in their final stage.
Cyprus Angle
If Christodoulides’s own schedule holds, his trip to El Alamein would mark the second time in six months that he has met with Sisi. Their previous meeting, centered on an agreement for the commercial development of the Kronos and Aphrodite gas fields, part of a plan to sell Cypriot natural gas to Europe via Egypt in 2027 and 2028.
Sisi’s Caution Toward Ankara
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been seeking broader rapprochement with Egypt, but Sisi has remained cautious toward Turkey, placing greater emphasis on the cooperation frameworks he maintains with Greece and Cyprus as well as close ties with India, the United Arab Emirates and Israel. TA NEA’s reporting also notes that Greek sources point to a European dimension in Athens’s relationship with Cairo, with Egypt looking to Europe for support across several areas and Greece and Cyprus consistently functioning as bridges to Europe.
What Comes Next
Mitsotakis’s Egypt visit is set to be followed almost immediately by another trip abroad. Upon his return, he is expected to travel to Paris for an international space conference co hosted by France and Germany on September 9 and 10. Christodoulides, meanwhile, has a meeting scheduled for September 9 with Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman.
Source: TA NEA
