The President of the Republic of Cyprus, Mr Nikos Christodoulides, met today, at the Presidential Palace, with the President of the State of Israel, Mr Isaac Herzog, who is paying a one-day working visit to Cyprus.

At their tête-à-tête meeting, the President of the Republic of Cyprus welcoming his Israeli counterpart said, inter alia: “It is a great pleasure to welcome you once again to Cyprus. You are not a stranger to us. Your family has a deep-rooted personal connection to Cyprus.

I am looking forward to our discussion, how to enhance our strategic partnership at all levels· on tourism – I was informed that during this summer we’ve had a record number of flights coming from Israel, more than 200 per week, where the average every year was approximately 140 – trade, security, energy, defense.

At the same time, [I am looking forward] to exchange views on the regional developments in our neighborhood and how we can work together also with other like-minded countries in order to create conditions of stability, security and cooperation.”

For his part, President Herzog said: “I love your country and I grew up loving it since childhood and it is always great to visit and to see the growth and development in Cyprus every time I visit.

You are a great friend and we respect the dialogue with you, the openness and frankness on all the multitude of issues you mentioned.

My dream is, and I wish, we could meet with the President of Lebanon, the President of Cyprus and the President of Israel, even here. And I wish we could realise a dream like that one day, because I believe that we should move towards peace in the region, whilst making sure that terror is shunned away and removed, and life thrives between nations and peoples for the well-being of the entire region and the world.

I bring a message of friendship from Israel and I hope that together we can enhance further the unique partnership, a very important partnership between our peoples and nations”.