Updated:
26 Jul 2022 06:59 PM (GMT)
Greece and Saudi Arabia will sign a deal on renewable energy
and discuss other investments and security, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) said in a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Athens.
MBS’s visit to Greece on Tuesday is his first to the European Union since the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. He is also expected to visit France next, state news agency SPA reported.
“We can provide Greece and Southwest Europe through Greece with much cheaper renewable energy and get an MoU [Memorandum of Understanding] signed about that today,” MBS said, sitting alongside Mitsotakis.
MBS, the kingdom’s de facto ruler whose last official visit outside the Middle East was to Japan in 2019 for a G20 summit, was expected discuss bilateral ties and matters of mutual interest, according to SPA.
Greece and Saudi Arabia agreed in May on the main terms to set up a joint venture to build a data cable, the so-called “East to Med Data Corridor”, which will be developed by MENA HUB, owned by Saudi Arabia’s STC and Greek telecoms and satellite applications company TTSA.
A Greek diplomatic source has told Reuters news agency that a deal on the undersea cable along with other agreements in energy and military would be signed.
“We will be signing important agreements and we will have an opportunity to further discuss regional developments,” Mitsotakis said.
Mitsotakis was among Western leaders who have visited Riyadh since the murder of Khashoggi.
Khashoggi was a 59-year-old Saudi-born US resident who wrote columns for the Washington Post critical of MBS and his policies, as well as the Saudi government.
His killing and dismemberment by Saudi agents in the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate in October 2018 brought the powerful crown prince international condemnation, especially in the West, and tainted his image as a reformer pushing to open up Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter
No comments:
Post a Comment