Samaras to represent Anastasiades at European Council meeting
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is to represent Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades at the European Council and a European conservative leaders’ meeting on Thursday after the latter was admitted and later discharged from a Brussels hospital following repeated nosebleeds caused by high blood pressure.
Samaras is expected to raise the issue of Turkey’s violation of Cyprus’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) with the arrival of the Barbaros research vessel into an area south of the island where Nicosia was already conducting research for hydrocarbons.
Earlier on Thursday, Samaras visited Anastasiades at a Brussels hotel where he was expected to rest for the next two days.
Meanwhile, a German official speaking to Greece’s AMNA new agency noted that Germany recognized Cyprus’s right to conduct research and manage natural gas resources in its EEZ area and called for Turkey to comply with international law.
The German official also expressed Germany’s concern over the fact that a new round of unification talks regarding the divided island were now on hold and said that a solution to the pending issue would be beneficial to both sides and the broader region.
