PM Netanyahu Meets with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides
Israel - Prime Minister's Office
Events and Speeches
The 37th Government
04.05.2025
PM Netanyahu Meets with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today, at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, met with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides. They first met privately and then held an expanded meeting.
Participating in the meeting were:
For the Cypriot side - Minister of Foreign Affairs Constantinos Combos; Energy, Commerce and Industry Minister Giorgos Papanastasiou; Deputy Minister for European Affairs Marilena Raouna, National Security Advisor Tasios Tzionis and Ambassador to Israel Kornelios Korneliu.
For the Israeli side: Energy Minister Eli Cohen; the Prime Minister's Chief-of-Staff, Tzachi Braverman; National Security Council Director Tzachi Hanegbi; the Prime Minister's Foreign Policy Advisor Dr. Ophir Falk; the Prime Minister's Spokesman, Dr. Omer Dostri; and Ambassador to Cyprus Oren Anolik.
Prime Minister Netanyahu:
"I'm very happy to welcome again to Israel President Nikos Christodoulides. We have a long friendship, not only personal but also between Cyprus and Israel. We are going to discuss our cooperation in many fields, many fields: political, diplomatic, economic, security. Our region is in a great transformation. I think our actions in the war have changed much of the map of the Middle East but we are still being challenged by radical forces, aggressive forces from many directions.
So as two democracies in the Eastern Mediterranean, we have common values, many common interests and we want to secure obviously our future in the best way that preserves prosperity, increases prosperity and security for our people.
One of the ideas that we talked about is IMEC, which is a very revolutionary and transformative development that we want to bring into place. I discussed it with Mr. Modi, Narendra Modi of India just a few days ago. We want to have a common discussion with him. We also want to have a trilateral meeting in Israel between Israel, Cyprus and Greece. We've done that over the years. We want to renew it as soon as possible and that is one of the things we'll do.
As far as the trade routes, obviously we're being challenged, the whole world is being challenged by the Houthis, including in the dastardly attack they did today near Ben-Gurion airport. We will not tolerate it. We will take very strong action against them. And we always remember that they act with their patron Iran's direction and support. We will do what we need to do to take care of our security to respond effectively and to give Iran due warning that this cannot continue."
President Christodoulides:
"I'm very glad to be back my dear friend Bibi. You know, my last visit was following the terrorist attack from Hamas. Let me congratulate you first of all for the anniversary of Israel. Let me also express my solidarity for the recent wildfires. Following your request, Cypriot forces came here and fought with their Israeli colleagues. Once again Cyprus proved that we are a predictable, reliable neighbor ready to support our friends in need. I'm here to discuss our excellent bilateral relations. We need to do much more on defense, intelligence, tourist, trade.
I was informed today that we have 110 flights from Israel every week to Cyprus. We can increase also Cypriot visits in Israel. We need to discuss regional developments, the situation in Syria and Lebanon. There is one neighbor that always is trying to create problems in our neighborhood. We'll exchange notes. But also the trilateral cooperation with Greece and even include other countries like India or the United States that we did in the past. We are going to have the Presidency of the European Union January 1, 2026, so we want to raise awareness about the region, about the importance of the region in Brussels so we have full agenda ahead of us to discuss once again.
Last but not least I want to mention this, my dearest Bibi, because I had a meeting with the families of two of the hostages. A deeply moving meeting, and I want publicly to repeat our clear position: all hostages must be released."
Prime Minister Netanyahu added:
"Indeed. And that is obviously something that we are pressing Hamas to do and enjoying the support of our friends, asking others to press not only Hamas but Qatar that has overwhelming influence over Hamas, which it doesn't always use but could use. In fact, we had a hostage deal about to materialize that would have released almost half of the hostages and with the help of Egypt. We didn't see the Qatari cooperation, that's to say the least, that could have brought this deal to fruition. That's what we expect to see, the support of our friends and the pressure of those who can press Hamas because you're right. The repeat, the release of the hostages and repatriation of the living and those who are not living back in Israel is a number one requirement from international, from morality, from common sense."
President Christodoulides:
"It's purely a humanitarian issue and humanitarian issues they don't have any political or geopolitical,"
Prime Minister Netanyahu:
"Unfortunately Hamas doesn't recognize that. That's why we should increase the pressure both diplomatic and military, which we are about to do. My friend, thank you and again, welcome to Jerusalem."
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