With oil and gas tankers stranded in the Strait of Hormuz and energy prices skyrocketing, European leaders have so far failed to find an agreement on how to help secure the strategic waterway. While Germany has indicated it could be ready to accept U.S. President Donald Trump’s demand for a maritime operation to reopen the strait, France insists that would only be acceptable in the context of a peace deal.
“There are efforts to have the negotiations between the Iranian side, the Americans and so on — there are various efforts of mediation taking place in various conflicts. We want and we advocate for the EU to be a lot more present and a lot more visible,” Kombos said.
Cyprus — which holds the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the EU — convened talks Friday afternoon between the bloc’s leaders and those from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Gulf nations, the most significant multilateral summit since the start of the Iran war.
However, relations with regional counterparts have been strained by their refusal to join Western sanctions on Russia in the wake of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Kombos said that the EU needs to increase its focus on stopping the illicit flow of goods and cash to the Kremlin, “but if we look at the Gulf with everything happening with all of this exclusively through this lens then I think we are missing a big part of what’s been developing,” he said, advocating for pragmatic relations with the region.
At the same time, Kombos backed controversial remarks made by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in which she warned against “Russian, Turkish or Chinese influence” — sparking a row over whether Turkey, a NATO ally, should be grouped alongside more hostile countries.
“I’m happy to see the fact that the assessment of threat as regards the European Union in general takes into consideration, at least in the way the statement was phrased, a factor for us … is part of our daily lives,” he said.
Cyprus has been divided into a Turkish Cypriot north and a Greek Cypriot south since Turkish forces invaded in 1974 in response to a Greek-backed coup. Ankara does not recognize the Republic of Cyprus, an EU member country that is otherwise recognized internationally as the sole sovereign authority over the whole island. The Turkish Cypriot north is recognized only by Ankara.
Ankara has frustrated Cypriot efforts to become a NATO member, following the 1974 Turkish invasion of the island, leading to its de facto partition. From the sunny hillside complex where Friday’s talks were taking place, leaders could look out to see the flag of the unrecognized, Turkish-backed breakaway administration etched on the mountains opposite.