The strong strategic partnership between Greece and Israel, based on the values and common interests of both countries in the region, were referred to by Ambassador of Israel to Greece Noam Katz, in an interview on Wednesday to Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA), in the framework of the 10th Delph Economic Forum.

Speaking to ANA-MPA journalist Nikos Drossos, Ambassador Katz underlined that he believes Greece and Israel "have a strong strategic partnership. It is based on values, it is based on common interests, it's based on common perception of our region, the benefits and the challenges. I think in the last few months you see the relations growing and developing. There was a kind of slowdown because of the situation in the Middle East, although from 2010 until today relations are growing steadily and becoming wider and deeper, and as you rightfully said, it's touching almost every field of cooperation that you can imagine. So it's government to government, business to business, civil society to civil society, and all the interaction between those segments - trade, energy, defense."

As he noted, referring to challenges in the region, "When we look at the world today, which is full of uncertainties, what countries that are democratic, that are liberal countries, are seeking is stability and peace, and the ability to bring growth to the people and to the region - and therefore Israel and Greece that enjoy a common view of the region together, also with Cyprus and together with pragmatic forces within the Middle East, among Arab countries, we'd like to see stability. We have engaged in a war for one year and a half years now, a war that was forced upon us by Hamas in Gaza that became a war with Iran and its proxies.

"I think that strategically we managed to push back Iran and proxies, and we are much stronger than we were before the war. We need to see that other forces that are destabilizers will not fill this vacuum. We need constructive players. We have an unstable situation in Syria, we have Turkey in the region that is playing an unconstructive role from an Israeli perspective at the moment, that is entrenching itself in Syria. Turkey is supporting the radical Sunni forces within the Middle East that are also  challenging Arab countries. And therefore we seek stability and we seek to see in the future, hopefully, that Turkey will become a constructive player. That's not the case at the moment." 

Regarding Cyprus, the Great Sea Interconnector project that will link the electricity grids of Greece, Cyprus and Israel, Katz noted that the project has dual value: "One, it will be part of the energy cocktail of the future of our country, and therefore it's important to Israel, it's important to Greece, it is important to Cyprus. The first leg of course is Greece-Cyprus, that is important also for Europe and also for the industries that are invested in it. The second value of it is the first actual step that can be actualized rapidly, that is making the concept of corridor a reality, and therefore we support it strongly. I think that all the three countries are committed. It's a valuable project and it should be materialized and I believe that it will be materialized soon." 

Speaking of developments in Syria, the Israeli ambassador stressed that "the first thing is that the fall of the Assad regime is a positive development. The Assad regime was an important partner in the network of Iran proxies in the Middle East. It was a valuable proxy of Iran, and the fact that this dictatorship is over is good for Syria, and it's good for the region." 

For Ambassador Katz, "The role of the people that brought down this regime, the de facto government today of Syria, is based on a coalition of jihadists, people that originally are coming from organizations that are extremely radical, like Al-Qaeda, that are extremely dangerous. So the fact that they are wearing suits at the moment doesn't necessarily make them change their DNA. And we've seen that this regime gives all kinds of statements that are not matching the actual activities within Syria.

"We've seen massacres in Syria, of Alawites in Western Syria not long ago, or some minorities. We would like to see a stable Syria, but we believe that minorities in Syria should be protected. It includes the Kurds, the Druze, the Christian minority, the Alawite minority and therefore we believe that the world should not buy all the promises, but judge the reality by itself. Israel is present in Syria in order to defend our border and to defend our security interests, and we will operate as necessary because our main lesson from October 7 is that we are not containing and not allowing threats to be built anymore on our borders."

In terms of the situation in Gaza, Katz noted that "the main thing when we think about Gaza is to understand that the three objectives that we have set at the beginning of the war are still our objectives. We want to release all our hostages, there are 59 hostages held by Hamas. We have to remember that Hamas is a radical organization that went into war, all-out war against Israel, executing genocidal inhumane massacre on Israeli citizens, and therefore we will dismantle this organization and will dismantle its military and governmental capabilities. If we want a future for Gaza, Hamas has to be out of Gaza. It means that if Hamas will surrender, it will disarm; if its leaders will leave Gaza, we can start thinking about the future of Gaza, if not... the war will continue until our objectives will be achieved."

(The interview is available at the ANA-MPA channel on YouTube, at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg_H-IzAHKs)