President heads to Jordan, Palestine

President Nikos Christodoulides will visit Jordan and Palestine on Tuesday, an announcement from the presidential palace said on Monday.

He will meet Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Amman along with Prince Hasan bin Talal and the heir to the throne Prince Hussein.

The king and Christodoulides will have a private meeting, in the presence of the crown prince, which will be followed by extended talks between the delegations of the two countries in the form of a working lunch.

Among the topics that will concern the talks are political cooperation between Cyprus and Jordan, since both countries are pillars of stability and peace in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East region, bilateral cooperation in various fields including cooperation in forest firefighting, immigration, regional developments, the Middle East Peace Process and developments in the Cyprus conflict.

Ministers will then sign memorandums of understanding on investment promotion, development cooperation and firefighting aid.

In the afternoon, Christodoulides will meet the Archbishop of Kyriakoupoleos Christoforos and attend a dinner hosted by Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.

The president will be accompanied by Foreign Affairs Minister Constantinos Kombos, Energy Minister George Papanastasiou, Government Spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis and the deputy director of the president’s diplomatic office Doros Venezis.

From Jordan, Christodoulides will travel to Ramallah, Palestine with his team on Wednesday, which is the first visit of a Cypriot President there since 2015.

Upon arriving in Ramallah, Christodoulides will visit the mausoleum of former president Yasser Arafat to lay a wreath.

After, he will visit President Mahmoud Abbas at the presidential palace.

Among the topics that will concern the meeting are developments in Cyprus, bilateral relations, regional developments and the Middle East.

Afterwards, a memorandum of cooperation will be signed between the governments of Cyprus and Palestine to finance the construction of a community centre in the village of Ein Qinya.

This will be followed by a working lunch of the two presidents and their delegations.