NICOSIA – There will be a trilateral meeting between Greece, Israel and Cyprus at the level of foreign ministers in Athens next Tuesday, foreign ministry spokesperson Alexandros Papaioannou announced on Wednesday.

Prior to the trilateral, there will be successive bilateral meetings between Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias and his counterparts from Israel, Yair Lapid, and Cyprus, Ioannis Kasoulidis. The meeting between the Greek and Cypriot foreign ministers will focus on the close coordination of the two countries’ actions with respect to the Cyprus issue and within the EU.

Dendias and Lapid will discuss planning on issues of strategic cooperation between Greece and Israel, as well as developments in the surrounding region with respect to energy and fighting terrorism.

“Unfortunately, we had three terrorist attacks in Israel in the last few days, which we condemned,” Papaioannou said.

There is also to be a broader discussion on developments in the region, the Middle East, the Gulf and North Africa, as well as on the meeting in the Negev desert hosted by Israel for the foreign ministers of Egypt, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bahrain, which was attended by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

During their trilateral meeting, the three foreign ministers will pick up from where they left off, at the end of their last meeting in August 2021, examining cooperation in all sectors, including energy, and discussing developments in the Eastern Mediterranean in light of the radical geostrategic changes taking place following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Regarding the EastMed pipeline, the spokesperson said its implementation was an economic rather than geopolitical issue, while no one has announced that it is “off the table”.