Christodoulides, Sisi meet in El Alamein

President Nikos Christodoulides and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met in the Egyptian Mediterranean coastal city of El Alamein on Tuesday morning, ahead of a trilateral meeting the pair are set to hold with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis later in the day.

According to government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis, the pair discussed “bilateral relations in sectors such as energy and defence, regional developments, as well as relations between the European Union and Egypt and the role played by the Republic of Cyprus in further strengthening these relations”.

The pair then visited the venue at which the El Alamein air show us being held.

Tuesday’s meetings come amid regional diplomatic jostling, with alliances being formed in the eastern Mediterranean and the wider region, with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey having formed the Mecca Defence Alliance, a tripartite defence pact last month.

It has been long suggested that Egypt could join that pact, with the foreign ministers of the three Mecca Defence Alliance countries and Egypt having met in March this year, and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan having said more recently that “Egypt could join the agreement” once technical matters are resolved.

Likewise, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described Egypt’s accession to the new alliance as “possible” and added that “this agreement has sent an important message to the world”.

In the end, Egypt remained outside the new defence alliance, with Egyptian news website Media Masr reporting that the country had chose not to join what was described as a “Saudi-authored political bloc” due to concerns that it could “restrict” the country’s ability to “manoeuvre among competing regional relationships”.

One of those factors, the website said, was the country’s “strategic” ties with both Greece and the Republic of Cyprus, as well as its deepening economic cooperation with India.

On Cyprus, it quoted a “former diplomat” has having noted Egypt’s “complex relationship” with both Greece and the Republic of Cyprus as something which would make it “unlikely” for the country to sign a defence agreement with Turkey.