A deal ‘around the corner’

A deal ‘around the corner’

Nikoaos Garilidis is the new ambassador of Greece to Egypt, the country where he was born in July 1958 and where he lived until the early 1970s when he went back to Athens to study law and join the Greek diplomatic service.

This is his first year in Cairo as ambassador, and during it he is hopeful that he will see the completion of a long-negotiated deal on the demarcation of maritime borders between Egypt and Greece.

"We are close, very close,“ to a deal, Garilidis said in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly at his office in Cairo earlier this week.

The process of negotiating exclusive economic zones (EEC) between Egypt and Greece was launched over three years ago during a visit of President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi to Athens, where he and then Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras agreed that to help each country benefit from the possible resources of its national waters an agreement needed to be signed.

A proper negotiation process on the demarcation of maritime borders between Cairo and Athens had never been seriously initiated before, as Cairo had wished to accommodate Ankara whose dispute with Athens and Nicosia over Cyprus had prohibited a maritime demarcation between Turkey