PAM Vice-President, Senator Mohammed Halaiqah (Jordan), and PAM Secretary General, Amb. Sergio Piazzi, attended and contributed to the Joint Seminar of the Mediterranean and Middle East Special Group of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, which was hosted by the Italian Parliament in Catania, Italy, on 2-4 October, 2014.
The event covered a number of critical issues for the Mediterranean region, including the Libyan crisis, the evolution of the Jihadist Movement in the MENA region, the geopolitics of the Syria-Iraq crisis, the challenges posed by the foreign fighters in Syria, and the impact of the recent Gaza crisis.
PAM took the opportunity at this event to hold a number of bilateral consultations also in view of the request it received from the UN Security Council to assist in the implementation of UNSC Resolution 2178 of 24 September 2014, on counter-terrorism.
Discussions were held, inter alia, with the delegations of Iraq, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Morocco. A specific exchange took place with the President of the Italian Senate, H.E. Pietro Grasso, himself the former Head of the Italian National Anti-Mafia Directorate.
The Seminar in Catania represented an excellent platform and opportunity for PAM to consolidate its relations with the NATO-PA and other partner countries from the MENA region and the Gulf countries, in preparation for the organization of the PAM counter-terrorism programme aimed at coordinating legislative initiatives in relation to foreign fighters in the region.