President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met with his Cypriot counterpart, Nicos Anastasiades, while in New York, said Natural Gas Europe.

The two leaders discussed regional cooperation on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly and both insisted on the need to strengthen energy security to protect the region’s hydrocarbon resources.

Government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides was quoted by In-Cyprus as saying: “The energy in our region is the first concern of the leaders following the recent discovery of gas within the EEZ of Egypt. The leaders are discussing how the discovery will now affect the region.

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Christodoulides added that the two Presidents see the energy find as positive and that it could be beneficial to both the region and greatly beneficial for Egypt and Cyprus.

The two leaders also discussed the upcoming tripartite meeting that will see the leaders of Egypt, Greece and Cyprus in Athens.

Eni, which made the Zohr mega-gas find, had also been exploring in Cypriot waters but has so far not found exploitable amounts of natural gas in Block 9 of Cyprus’ EEZ.

The Zohr find and the possible consequences of this for Egypt’s planned gas imports from Cyprus’ Aphrodite field were also high on the agenda of the two leaders talks.