Broader cooperation seen growing from Egypt-Greece-Cyprus summits
The sixth summit that gathered the leaders of Egypt, Greece and Cyprus on the Greek island of Crete on Wednesday showed that their trilateral cooperation is likely to become a nucleus for broader regional cooperation, Egyptian political experts said on Thursday.
The three leaders agreed to establish a Cyprus-based executive secretariat for their cooperation mechanism to follow up the implementation of the summit resolutions as well as a Cairo-based forum on East Mediterranean gas.
“There is a tendency shared by Egypt, Greece and Cyprus to create a permanent, open regional entity that is not restricted to the three states,” said Saeed al-Lawindi, a researcher at Cairo-based state-run Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS).
“The summit is a nucleus for a regional alliance with general shared interests and particular cooperation in several fields including oil and energy, which rose in the East Mediterranean region after the maritime demarcation agreements between the three states,” Lawindi told Xinhua.
[Xinhua]
