Syria, Turkey on agenda for Israel, Greece and Cyprus
HOURS after Syrian media accused Israel of striking the port city of Latakia, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Tuesday that the military was constantly fighting “bad forces” in the Middle East.
“We’re pushing back on the bad forces of this region day and night,” he said in English alongside Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades.
“We won’t stop for one second. This happens almost daily. In the face of destructive forces we will continue to act, we will be persistent and we will not tire,” Bennett pledged.
Turning to the trilateral relationship, Bennett said that the regional EastMed Gas Forum – which includes Israel, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus and the Palestinian Authority – was progressing.
“We are expanding our ties in the fields of security, the economy, technology, tourism and emergency services,” he said, referencing mutual aid provided over the summer in the face of forest fires in the three countries.
While Bennett did not mention Turkey, a regional rival of all three countries, Anastasiades laid into Ankara in his address, calling it a country that is “actively sabotaging any effort for regional understanding”.
He accused Turkey of “practising a revisionist policy in which might is right” and of violating Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone in the Mediterranean.
Anastasiades said he would brief his counterparts on ongoing tensions with Turkey in Cyprus. Turkey is the only country that recognises the breakaway Northern Cyprus republic on the northern part of the island.
While firmly rejecting a two-state solution in Cyprus, Anastasiades called for negotiations that would result in a “just and viable two-state solution which will address the legitimate security concerns of the State of Israel, and will enable Israelis and Palestinians to live side by side in security and peaceful co-existence with all their neighbours”.
In his statement, Mitsotakis also assailed Turkey for the “unacceptable provocations when it comes to … this Turkish change of approach vis-a-vis the resolution of the Cyprus problem”.
“The only viable solution to the Cyprus problem is one that fully respects all the decisions taken by the Security Council,” he said, saying that third parties such as Turkey had no right to intervene in Cypriot affairs.
“Unfortunately, what we see from Turkey is a continued intransigence and unacceptable aggression, both on land and in the maritime zones of Cyprus,” he continued.
The three countries held a naval drill earlier this year in a sign of their deepening military ties.
In August, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid hosted his Greek and Cypriot allies in Jerusalem, speaking of his vision of a future regional alliance to include the UAE, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt, Cyprus, Greece and others as a “key part of the change that is happening in the region. A moderate, pragmatic and forward-looking alliance”.
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