Greece, Saudi Arabia to sign energy deal, crown prince says
RIYADH/ATHENS (Reuters) -Greece and Saudi Arabia will signal a deal in renewable vitality and talk about different investments and safety, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stated on Tuesday in a gathering with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Athens.
Prince Mohammed’s go to to Greece is his first to a member state of the European Union for the reason that 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“We are able to present Greece and Southwest Europe by way of Greece with less expensive renewable vitality and get an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) signed about that at present,” Prince Mohammed stated, sitting alongside Mitsotakis.
Prince Mohammed’s final official go to exterior the Center East had been to Japan in 2019 for a G20 summit.
Greece and Saudi Arabia agreed in Might on the principle phrases to arrange a three way partnership to construct a knowledge cable, the so-called “East to Med information Hall”, which can be developed by MENA HUB, owned by Saudi Arabia’s STC and Greek telecoms and satellite tv for pc functions firm TTSA.
A Greek diplomatic supply has stated {that a} deal on the undersea cable together with different agreements in vitality and navy could be signed.
“We can be signing vital agreements and we could have a possibility to additional talk about regional developments,” Mitsotakis stated.
Mitsotakis was amongst Western leaders who’ve visited Riyadh for the reason that homicide of Khashoggi on the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, which sparked an outcry within the West and tainted the prince’s picture as a reformist pushing to open up Saudi Arabia, the world’s prime oil exporter.
France’s President Emanuel Macron additionally visited Riyadh final yr and U.S. President Joe Biden met with Prince Mohammed on a visit to Saudi Arabia earlier this month as Washington works to ease rigidity with Riyadh.
U.S. intelligence has implicated the prince within the killing of Khashoggi, a cost the prince and Saudi authorities deny.
After Greece, Prince Mohammed will head to France.
(Reporting by Nayera Abdullah in Cairo and Angeliki Koutantou in Athens; Writing by Nadine Awadalla and Ghaida Ghantous; Modifying by Catherine Evans and Tomasz Janowski)
