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Egypt, Cyprus Seek Coordination to Boost Stability in Eastern Mediterranean

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry (R) and Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulidis (L) during a meeting in Cairo, Egypt, 26 May 2022. (EPA)
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry (R) and Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulidis (L) during a meeting in Cairo, Egypt, 26 May 2022. (EPA)
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Egypt, Cyprus Seek Coordination to Boost Stability in Eastern Mediterranean

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry (R) and Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulidis (L) during a meeting in Cairo, Egypt, 26 May 2022. (EPA)
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry (R) and Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulidis (L) during a meeting in Cairo, Egypt, 26 May 2022. (EPA)

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Cypriot counterpart Ioannis Kasoulidis stressed the deep bilateral ties between their countries in various fields.

During a press conference in Cairo, Shoukry hailed the cooperation between Egypt and Cyprus as firm and based on transparency, friendship, and clarity.

Egypt and Cyprus are keen to boost stability in the Eastern Mediterranean and to tackle the challenges that the region faces, the top Egyptian diplomat said.

Shoukry added that Cyprus continues to deliver Egypt’s voice to members of the European Union regarding important issues linked to Egyptian national security and the efforts to bolster security and stability in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Shoukry and Kasoulidis held extensive talks earlier, where they discussed cooperation in many fields, starting with trade, energy, and investments.

The two ministers also reviewed the outcome of the past meetings of the Egypt-Cyprus joint committee and discussed preparations for future one.

They discussed regional issues, including the Palestinian cause, the situation in Libya, efforts to achieve stability in the East Mediterranean region, and the activation of the EastMed Gas Forum.

The Cypriot FM said his country seeks to boost the bilateral strategic relations with Egypt, expressing satisfaction with the progress recently achieved in these relations on all levels.

He also hailed Egypt’s role regarding climate issues as Egypt prepares to host the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in November.

Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit on Thursday discussed with Cypriot FM the latest developments at the regional and international levels.

The Ukrainian crisis was also among their talking points.

Aboul-Gheit called for reaching a diplomatic solution to the conflict that leads to a ceasefire, so as to mitigate the crisis' impact on food security in the region.

They also discussed the latest developments of the Palestinian cause and the Syrian crisis, and ways of benefiting from the energy sources in the Eastern Mediterranean region.

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Families of Disappeared in Syria Want the Search to Continue on Conflict’s 14th Anniversary

Family members hold pictures of their relatives who disappeared in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war, during a protest calling on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them, in the city of Daraa, Syria, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP)
Family members hold pictures of their relatives who disappeared in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war, during a protest calling on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them, in the city of Daraa, Syria, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP)
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Families of Disappeared in Syria Want the Search to Continue on Conflict’s 14th Anniversary

Family members hold pictures of their relatives who disappeared in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war, during a protest calling on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them, in the city of Daraa, Syria, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP)
Family members hold pictures of their relatives who disappeared in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war, during a protest calling on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them, in the city of Daraa, Syria, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP)

Family members of Syrians who disappeared in the 14-year civil war on Sunday gathered in the city of Daraa and called on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them.

The United Nations in 2021 estimated that over 130,000 Syrians were taken away and disappeared, many of them detained by Bashar al-Assad's network of intelligence agencies, as well as by opposition fighters and the extremist ISIS group. Advocacy group The Syrian Campaign says some 112,000 are still missing to this day.

When opposition led by group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham overthrew President Bashar Assad in April, they stormed prisons and released detainees from the ousted government's dungeons.

Families of the missing quickly rushed to the prisons seeking their loved ones. While there were some reunions, rescue services also discovered mass graves around the country and used whatever remains they could retrieve to identify the dead.

Wafa Mustafa held a placard of her father, Ali, who was detained by the Assad government's security forces in 2013. She fled a week later to Germany, fearing she would also be detained, and hasn't heard from him since.

Like many other Syrians who fled the conflict or went into exile for their activism, she often held protests and rallied in European cities. Now, she has returned twice since Assad's ouster, trying to figure out her father's whereabouts.

“I’m trying, feeling both hope and despair, to find any answer on the fate of my father,” she told The Associated Press. “I searched inside the prisons, the morgues, the hospitals, and through the bodies of the martyrs, but I still couldn’t find anything.”

A United Nations-backed commission on Friday urged the government led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa to preserve evidence and anything they can document from prisons in the ongoing search for the disappeared and to pursue perpetrators.

Some foreign nationals are missing in Syria as well, notably American journalist Austin Tice, whose mother visited Syria in January and met with al-Sharaa. Tice has not been heard from other than a video released weeks after his disappearance in 2012 that showed him blindfolded and held by armed men.

Syria’s conflict started as one of the popular uprisings of the so-called 2011 Arab Spring, before Assad crushed the largely peaceful protests and a civil war erupted. Half a million people have been killed and more than 5 million left the country as refugees.