Cyprus and Lebanon signed a search-and-rescue cooperation agreement Wednesday, despite an ongoing sea boundary dispute between the island nation and Turkey.
"This is a very important agreement ... It is the first agreement that Cyprus has signed with a neighbor on such an important humanitarian issue," Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis said.
Cyprus' sea boundaries and search-and-rescue rights are disputed by Turkey, which occupies the northern third of the island and sponsors a breakaway Turkish Cypriot republic there.
