Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Thursday, 11 March 2021), in Jerusalem, held a trilateral summit meeting with Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on cooperating in the research, development and production of vaccines.

Prime Minister Netanyahu at the statements with the leaders:

"This is a delight to welcome two close friends, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary and Prime Minister Andrej Babiš of Czech Republic. When I say close friends I mean that, both close personal friends but also leaders who've made their countries even greater friends of Israel than before.

“We appreciate the fact that they've opened up missions in Jerusalem and also that they assist us on the international stage as true friends do. In the spirt of that friendship, they came here to Jerusalem to see how we can cooperate on COVID.

“We discussed a number of ideas. The first is exchanging green passports as we've done with several countries already. It would be an important addition to add Hungary and the Czech Republic to this but equally to see how we can involve both Czech Republic and Hungary in the international plant that we want to build here in Israel for the production of the vaccines of the future.

“We discussed this. I have to say that there is interest in cooperating on this. This creates a capability for our countries that is I think more significant when we do it together. We are better together.

“The last thing that I want to say is to thank the many people who sent well wishes to my wife Sara. I visited her a few hours ago in the hospital. She is doing better. Recovering."

The three leaders also held a working meeting with their countries' professional teams. The heads of government and their representatives discussed the fight against the coronavirus in all its aspects including exit strategy, reducing regulation between the countries and the green passport.

Also participating in the meeting were Health Minister Yuli Edelstein, Foreign Minister Gaby Ashkenazy, the head of the Prime Minister's staff Asher Hayon, Prime Minister's Office Acting Director General Tzachi Braverman, Health Ministry Director General Prof. Chezy Levy, National Economic Council head Professor Avi Simhon, National Security Council deputy head Eitan Ben-David, Israeli Ambassador to Hungary Yaakov Hadas and Israeli Ambassador to the Czech Republic Daniel Meron. Hungarian Foreign Minister Szijjarto, Hungarian Ambassador to Israel Levente Benko, Director of the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic Tunde Bartha and other officials also attended.

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In response to a question, Prime Minister Netanyahu said:

"My visit to the UAE was not possible due to misunderstanding and difficulties in coordinating our flights that stemmed from an incident that happened yesterday on the Temple Mount.

“It took us several good hours to straighten things out with Jordan. We could have flown, I can fly over Jordan, but until this coordination was achieved, the visit was not possible.

“I just spoke about this with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, a great leader, the leader of the UAE, and we agreed on three things: First, that we will have an additional visit very soon. Second, we will move forward on the green passport between Israel and the UAE. Third, and this is very important news for the citizens of Israel, the UAE intends to invest, by various methods, the vast sum of $10 billion – almost NIS 40 billion – in various projects.

“Prof. Simhon has already spoken with the head of the UAE sovereign wealth fund and we have already discussed the specific projects. This is another way of jumping our economy forward."