JERUSALEM, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with his Slovak, Czech and Hungarian counterparts on Tuesday, a day after a high-profile summit was cancelled amid a quarrel between Poland and Israel.
Netanyahu held one-on-one meetings before hosting the three visiting prime ministers for lunch at his official residence in Jerusalem, said a statement of his office.
The statement said they discussed cooperation in various fields, including business, technology, security and intelligence.
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said he asked for Israel's help in the fields of water management and medical cannabis.
"Israel is our strategic partner in the Middle East," Babis said, adding that he hopes to host Netanyahu and a government delegation in Prague in 2020 for a series of government-to-government talks.
Netanyahu assured the leaders that Israel is keen to cooperate with their countries in many fields.
"The possibilities for cooperation between us are limitless," he said.
The personal meetings came instead of a summit of prime ministers from Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, known as the Visegrad Group or V4.
Jerusalem had planned to host the annual summit of the group on Monday and Tuesday but the meeting was cancelled after the Polish prime minister refused to participate following a remark by an Israeli minister on Polish anti-Semitism and collaboration with the Nazis in the Holocaust.
The Visegrad Group meets once a year. After Netanyahu was invited to participate in the meeting in Budapest last year, Jerusalem was supposed to host the 2019 meeting.
The cancellation of the summit was a serious blow to Netanyahu's foreign policy, as the Israeli leader has been making efforts over the past years for growing ties with V4 countries as part of his strategy to change the EU stance on the Palestinians and Iran.
