Cyprus-Saudi Arabia ties at an all-time high

With relations between Cyprus and Saudi Arabia at an all time high, September 23 will mark Saudi National Day, which celebrates the unification of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by the late King Abdulaziz bin Saud in 1932.

Saudi Arabia and Cyprus can boast decades of shared friendship and over the years enjoyed strong business ties with hundreds of Cypriot people and companies working in the kingdom.

Bilateral diplomatic ties between the two countries were fast-tracked in 2015, when the Cyprus Embassy in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh was first established. The Saudi Embassy in Nicosia, on the other hand, was established in September 2018, a year before the appointment of H.E. Khaled Mohammad Alsharif as the first resident Ambassador to Cyprus.

Since then, several memorandums of cooperation and agreements between the two countries have been signed on a vast range of topics.

“The friendly and mutually rewarding bilateral relationship between Saudi Arabia and Cyprus has grown considerably over the last years as since the establishment of diplomatic relations, both countries are maintaining excellent state of friendship with enhanced development cooperation,” Ambassador Alsharif said.

He also underlined the role of the Cyprus-Saudi Business Association, founded in October 2020 in Limassol, which aims to create new opportunities for partnership between businesspeople in both countries.

“The Association is constantly enhancing the efforts in strengthening the business relations by operating as a bridge between both countries,” he said.

On top of that, last January Cyprus and Saudi Arabia also agreed to launch a political dialogue between foreign ministries.

The decision was taken at a meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries, Nikos Christodoulides and Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, in the Saudi capital.

Since that first meeting, the two ministers hold constant talks to find ways of further boosting ties between the them through bilateral agreements and by joint actions in areas such as trade, tourism and sustainability, a key topic for both Saudi Arabia and Cyprus.

The ‘Saudi Green Initiative’ and ‘The Middle East Green Initiative’ in that sense are very significant, as they outline the significant steps taken by Saudi Arabia to scale up its climate action and environmental protection.

Both initiatives have the goal of increasing reliance on clean energy to offset the impact of fossil fuels and combat climate change.

“With the 91^st anniversary of Saudi Arabia’s National Day, we are looking forward to reaching higher goals under the leadership of King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and through the ‘Saudi Vision 2030’ plan, launched by the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which aims to establish a more diverse and sustainable economy, to combat climate change and protect the environment,” Ambassador Alsharif said.