Israel’s PM Netanyahu talks energy cooperation at Cyprus meet

Tel Aviv [Israel]: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday evening spoke in public together with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides.

Netanyahu arrived on an official visit to the country on Sunday.

“Western civilization is the result of basically Greek culture and Judaism fused together. And that, our commitment to democracy and our common interest in the region—to fight radicalism, to fight terrorism, to fight those who don’t share our worldview and want to destroy our world—the combination of these things has made this association, this partnership, real,” said Netanyahu.

Netanyahu went on to speak about the increase in Israeli tourism to Cyprus, the investments made by Israelis to local high-tech there and the growing cooperation in security between the two nations.

“We’re signing, close to signing a science cooperation agreement,” said Netanyahu. “We’re talking about now in the field of energy, about two main things.

One is an electrical connector that will connect Cyprus to Greece and to mainland Europe. And from Cyprus to Israel and possibly to countries to our east. And that gives us the ability to, not to be—forgive the expression—islands.

I’m not sure being an island is so bad. We in Israel often even wished that we’d been an island.”

And Netanyahu mentioned Israel’s recent aid to Cyprus in fighting wildfires that broke out in the island nation.