A high-level PAM delegation led by President Rudy Salles of France will visit the Middle East between Monday 17 and Friday 22 May 2009. The delegates will be traveling to Cairo, Gaza, Ramallah, Jerusalem and Amman.
The visit had been decided upon during the 3rd Plenary Session of the Assembly, held in Monaco in November 2008, where it was unanimously approved to be included together with the major events for the PAM 2009 calendar.
During the mission, a number of meetings are scheduled to be held with national and local authorities as well as regional and international organizations working in the area. Through this fact-finding mission, PAM delegates will be able to get a firsthand picture of the current situation on the ground.
This initiative is part of PAM’s ongoing efforts to strengthen dialogue and actively support and contribute to the peace process in the Middle East and to other open issues which affect the citizens of the region.
Since November, the Secretariat had started to organize the logistical aspects of the trip, which became even more topical following the December/January escalation of violence between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza.
PAM has also sought and was accorded the necessary support from a number of regional UN agencies with whom PAM is establishing a network of collaborative actions in the Mediterranean. In a recent meeting with PAM Secretary General, Dr. Sergio Piazzi, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stressed the important role that parliamentary diplomacy can play in conjunction with traditional diplomacy and international institutions.
“Parliamentarians themselves have a primary function at the national and regional level since they can influence, with determination, their governments’ actions and policies”, Mr Ban Ki-moon
said. He also praised PAM’s outreach and offered his full personal support to its initiatives, which are aimed at creating the necessary dialogue and promote the implementation of tangible measures that can further lead to the establishment of peaceful coexistence between populations.