[ad_1]
Lauding the multifaceted alliance between Jerusalem and Nicosia, President Isaac Herzog bestowed the Israeli Presidential Medal of Honor on his Cypriot counterpart Nicos Anastasiades on Wednesday at his official residence in Jerusalem.
The award was the newest image of Israel’s persevering with efforts to maintain its japanese Mediterranean allies shut regardless of a current thaw with Turkey, which stays a bitter rival of Cyprus and Greece.
“Whereas the nations of the Mediterranean have extra usually been divided by battle than united by cooperation, Israel and Cyprus have really constructed a real friendship,” Herzog mentioned throughout a ceremony within the Nice Corridor of the President’s Residence.
“The core of this new Mediterranean actuality is constructed upon the courageous Israel-Cyprus bilateral relationship, which you’ve got courageously spearheaded, together with our trilateral alliance along with Greece,” the president continued, pointing on the regional EastMed Gasoline Discussion board, the EuroAsia Interconnector vitality venture, and the four-way strategic discussion board the three nations shaped together with the UAE.
Herzog additionally praised “the heat [Anastasiades has] constantly proven to Israel and the Jewish Folks.”
The Cypriot chief mentioned the ceremony “evokes intense emotions and feelings.”
He added that the Israel-Cyprus relationship is “strategic.”
President Isaac Herzog welcomes President of the Republic of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, November 9, 2022 (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)
An IDF honor guard and band welcomed Anastasiades and First Woman Andri Anastasiadou once they arrived on the President’s Residence.
Earlier within the day, Anastasiades met with Likud chief Benjamin Netanyahu, presumed to be the following prime minister. Netanyahu’s workplace mentioned the 2 mentioned strengthening bilateral ties.
In recent times Israel, Greece and Cyprus ramped up cooperation on financial efforts within the Mediterranean Sea, together with on electrical energy and gasoline. Additionally they shared a suspicion towards Turkey, which has been making an attempt to increase its presence within the japanese Mediterranean. The three nations held a naval drill final yr in an indication of their deepening army ties.
Nonetheless, Turkey and Israel reestablished full diplomatic ties in August, a course of largely shepherded by Herzog.
President Isaac Herzog, left, and Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades converse to the media, throughout a press convention after their assembly on the presidential palace in Nicosia, Cyprus, Wednesday, March 2, 2022 (Iakovos Hatzistavrou/Pool through AP)
Herzog visited Cyprus and Greece early this yr to reassure the Turkish rivals forward of a March journey to Ankara.
Throughout his go to to Nicosia, Herzog informed Anastasiades that “nothing in my [Turkey] go to and what would ensue can be on the account of this strategic relationship along with your nation.”
Anastasiades awarded Herzog the Grand Collar of the Order of Makarios III, Cyrpus’s highest order of benefit, throughout that journey.
In August 2021, then-Overseas Minister Yair Lapid welcomed his Greek and Cypriot colleagues to Israel and famous {that a} pragmatic alliance was rising throughout the Center East and the japanese Mediterranean area, which incorporates Israel’s Arab companions.
On Tuesday, Israel’s environmental safety minister attended a regional assembly co-hosted by Anastasiades on the COP27 world assembly on local weather change in Egypt, alongside the Iraqi and Lebanese leaders.
A drilling platform off the coast Limassol, Cyprus, March 10, 2019 the place ExxonMobil found the third-biggest gasoline deposit on the planet. (AP /Petros Karadjias)
The Presidential Medal of Honor, bestowed on 29 folks to date, was initiated by then-president Shimon Peres in 2012. Based mostly on the French Legion of Honor, it was final given in 2014 earlier than Herzog gave it to US President Joe Biden and Czech President Miloš Zeman earlier this yr.
Herzog reconstituted the Medal of Honor advisory committee upon taking workplace, beneath retired Supreme Court docket Justice Yoram Danziger.
Herzog introduced 5 different recipients this week as nicely: poet Rachel Shapira, IDF Brig. Gen. (res.) Pinchas Bukhris, Arab academic entrepreneur Dalia Fadila, youth educator Haim Perry, and US Jewish chief Michael Siegal.
[ad_2]
Source link
