NICOSIA, May 8 (Xinhua) -- Cyprus, Greece and Israel have affirmed their commitment to the construction of a natural gas pipeline to connect the eastern Mediterranean natural gas fields with Europe, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said on Tuesday.
"We have affirmed our commitment to sign an inter-state agreement within 2018," Anastasiades said after a meeting with the prime ministers of Greece and Israel, Alexis Tsipras and Benjamin Netanyahu, in Nicosia.
"The promotion of the EastMed project is a core element of cooperation between the three countries," he added.
The three leaders met for the fourth time in many years to discuss cooperation on a variety of projects, including the connection of Israel, Cyprus and Greece with a high-power electrical line, as part of the Eurasia Interconnector, and also an optical fiber line for high-speed communications.
Tsipras and Netanyahu agreed that the EastMed is a "project of the highest geopolitical importance" not only for the three countries but for the whole of Europe.
The project, at an estimated cost of 5 billion euros (5.93 billion U.S. dollars), has the support of the European Commission, which considers it as an alternative source of energy supply to Europe, which will make it less dependent on Russian supplies.
Israel, Cyprus and Egypt have discovered vast quantities of natural gas in the Levantine basin of the Eastern Mediterranean and are currently considering synergies for their development.
In a related development, Cyprus and Egypt said they agreed to sign "as quickly as possible", an agreement to build a pipeline connecting Cyprus' Aphrodite gas field to Egypt's liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities at Idku and Damietta.
Turning to regional problems, the three countries affirmed support for the restart of the stalled negotiations for a solution to the Cyprus problem, one of the oldest international problems on the UN agenda after the Palestine issue.
They also supported the restart of negotiations for a solution to the Palestinian issue.
