Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos on Wednesday met with officials from the US, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the UN ahead of Thursday’s meeting on Cyprus’ Amalthia Project, in which representatives of 35 countries and other stakeholders are to participate.
In his post on ‘X’, Kombos refers to the separate meetings he had earlier on Wednesday with US National Security Council Chief of Staff, Curtis Reid, the UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation, Reem Ebrahim Al Hashimy and UN Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, ‘ahead of tomorrow’s Senior Officials Meeting on the Cyprus Maritime Corridor’.
The common goal, the Minister said, was ‘to ensure that urgently needed humanitarian aid is delivered to the people of Gaza’.
As regards Thursday’s meeting, an official statement said that, the activation of the ‘Amalthia’ Project, led to the first maritime delivery of aid to Gaza through the ship Open Arms and the contribution of World Central Kitchen, while a
second delivery was to follow ‘in the immediate future’.
Cyprus, it said, since the beginning of the current crisis in the Middle East ‘worked intensively and methodically’ to implement the initiative for the creation of a one-way maritime corridor, for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. ‘An initiative which is based on geographical proximity, on the excellent level of relations with all parties directly involved, as well as on international humanitarian law’, it adds.
It notes that, in the context of defining the next steps, Cyprus is hosting a Senior Officials Meeting on Thursday, at the Zenon Coordination Center in Larnaca, in which the partners directly involved, as well as other interested parties, will participate.
‘The aim of the meeting is to coordinate on matters concerning technical aspects of the Amalthia Plan to enhance its viability, such as the establishment of a joint fund and other logistical support aspects’, it adds.
In total, 35 countries, including Cyprus, will participate in th
e meeting. The UN will also be represented through the Coordinator for Humanitarian Assistance and Reconstruction in Gaza, as well as the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Food Programme (WFP), UNICEF and UNOPS. The meeting will also be attended by the EU through the Director General of DG ECHO, representatives of USAID, as well as by representatives of the World Central Kitchen and FOGBOW.
Source: Cyprus News Agency
