The Eastern Mediterranean and the wider Middle East can become a region of peace if all countries work together, was the key takeaway from the first two roundtable discussions on geostrategic developments in the region, during the first day of the Economist Annual Summit in Cyprus, held on Monday in Nicosia.
In her online intervention, former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said the US President's Gaza plan does not resolve the conflict between Israel and Palestine, but it is a good start.
He added on the future of Gaza that the Palestinian Authority should be involved, provided it understands the need for reforms, but there is also a need for regional cooperation to strengthen the Palestinian Authority to act against Hamas inside Gaza.
He also expressed the hope that the Israeli Government will also join the effort, not only by acting against Hamas, but also by cooperating or facilitating or agreeing to the Palestinian Authority having a role in Gaza and in the future.
For his part, former Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said that any future outlook must take into account the various dynamics and developments, not only the situation in Gaza, but also the conditions in the West Bank, as well as the projection of Israeli military power beyond its immediate neighborhood.
He added that the 20-point peace plan proposed by President Trump was probably the first time in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that the United States has shown political will to impose a solution, even a partial one, to the ongoing conflict and its ability to influence Israel's position to agree to the proposal and accept its implementation.
He described the issue of further recognition of the Palestinian state by some important members of the international community as a welcome development, but the question is how this recognition will be translated into practical measures to facilitate international consensus on the recognition of a Palestinian state.
Israel's Ambassador to Cyprus, Oren Anolik, said that the Abraham Accords, signed in 2020 between Israel and several Arab countries, such as the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco, as well as Israel's previous peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, are living proof that normalization, cooperation and coexistence are possible in the Middle East.
He added that from war can come new opportunity, and from disaster sometimes comes the moral clarity to rebuild in a different way, adding that President Trump's peace plan is not a magic formula, but offers a framework that can help move from crisis management to relationship transformation.
"Cooperation with Israel brings tangible benefits, investment, innovation, security and stability, and the Abraham Accords taught us that normalization is not the end of the conflict, but the beginning of a new logic, a logic in which Israelis and Arabs innovate together, invest together, build together and even dream together," he concluded.
The former European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said in turn that Cyprus is once again at the center of all these geostrategic changes, which has increased the island's strategic importance.
He added that a united Cyprus can help overcome all these problems in the Eastern Mediterranean, from the conflict in Gaza or other parts of the Mediterranean to the demarcation of exclusive economic zones, which is part of the complex situation in the region, expressing a note of hope after the election of the new leader of the Turkish Cypriot community.
He also noted that Europe needs to understand that the Mediterranean is part of its vital space and therefore needs to have a stronger presence there, but to achieve this it needs to overcome its internal problems.
Former Egyptian Foreign Minister and former Secretary General of the Arab League, Amre Moussa, said that Cyprus can play a pivotal role in the coming months and perhaps the coming years in building peace in the Middle East.
"There will be no other solution unless we work together and call on all parties to come together and establish peace. Living together, working together, it will benefit all of us as individuals, it will benefit the peoples of this region, the Eastern Mediterranean, it will benefit all peoples around the world," he said.
Finally, the President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, Haris Georgiadis, stated that peace is possible in the region.
He added that in this region and in this perspective, Cyprus and Greece certainly have a role to play, with Cyprus playing a particularly constructive role, despite the open problem with Turkey.
"This is a country vital to the stability of the region, a very important country, but right now we see a country behaving in a way that destabilizes the region, and unfortunately both Greece and Cyprus are suffering the consequences of their policies, which shows that they are not yet a partner we can count on in the effort we need to make to transform the Eastern Mediterranean region into a region of peace, prosperity and perspective, and not a region conflicts and war", he concluded.
