The Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs in a telephone conversation yesterday with his German counterpart, Haiko Maas, emphasized the need for stability in the Eastern Mediterranean and said that Greece and Cyprus are allies of his country.
"Egypt has stressed to Germany that it rejects the policy of territorial expansion and the creation of tensions adopted by certain regional actors in the eastern Mediterranean," Al-Ahram reported Egyptian Foreign Affairs Minister Sameh Soukri as saying.
According to the official statement, the head of the Egyptian diplomacy discussed the efforts to restore stability in the Eastern Mediterranean region, especially in the midst of the recent escalation of the dispute over the drilling rights from Turkey with two of the main Egypt's allies: Greece and Cyprus.
Soukri reaffirmed Egypt's continued cooperation and coordination with its neighbors and various friendly countries to achieve peace and security for all the peoples of the region.
In August, both the parliament's of Egypt and Greece ratified a deal between their two countries to mostly demarcate their Exclusive Economic Zones in the East Mediterranean.
“The riches of the Mediterranean have pushed some to act provocatively in the territorial waters and the economic zones related to certain countries,” Egyptian Parliament Speaker Ali Abdel Aal said at the time.
Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias at the time also expressed his joy of the signing of the deal with Egypt.
“The agreement with Egypt is an advantageous national agreement, a great national success which responds to the efforts of Greek diplomacy for about 17 years. So it’s a happy moment,” Dendias said after the signing of the deal.
“It is a fair deal and a legal deal. And this is the important thing: it is an agreement that clearly demonstrates to the international community how illegal, unrealistic, apart from International Law and the Law of the Sea, the Turkish-Libyan Memorandum was,” he continued.