Cairo – 17 February 2022. PAM President, Hon. Gennaro Migliore and PAM President Emeritus, Hon. Karim Darwish, participated in the 32nd Conference of the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union, held in Cairo, on 17-18 February 2022, presided by H.E Mr. Saqr Ghubash, Speaker of the Federal National Council of the United Arab Emirates. The Conference addressed the current political, security, social and economic situation in the Arab world. The main theme of the discussion this year was Arab Solidarity.
In his statement, PAM President highlighted the common challenges that PAM and the Arab IPU Member States share concerning socio-economic development, security issues, mass migration, climate change, and environmental degradation. He called participants to join forces to address these many ongoing challenges in the Euro-Mediterranean and the Arab world at large. He expressed concerns about the growing violence recurring between Israel and Palestine. He continued “as the UN Secretary-General stated a week ago, time is running short, and all parties must take concrete steps towards the path of meaningful negotiations and a just and lasting peace.”
He also referred to other key security issues in the Euro-Mediterranean and Gulf regions, including the situation in Libya, in Syria and Lebanon, in the Western Sahara, and in the Sahel. In this regard, PAM President expressed his concerns about the exponential deterioration of the security situation in the region, with a multiplication of coups d’état, terrorist attacks and innocent victims.
Hon. Migliore reiterated PAM full support to the “Call of the Sahel” initiative, launched by the Arab Parliament, stressing the importance to engage with the UN Special Representative for West Africa and Sahel on this issue, adding that PAM considers “extremely important for the Arab IPU to join this endeavor as the role you play is critical and we need all efforts to maximize effectiveness of action.”
Then, President Migliore expressed the concerns of PAM over an extremely important threat that Egypt, one of PAM funding members, is facing: the access to the water of the Nile River. He stated that “water is a basic element of life and must be preserved. I wish to recall that a few years ago, during a PAM official visit to Washington, President Emeritus Hon. Mohamed Abu El Enein was the first to engage the UN and the US Administration on this critical topic. All upstream countries concerned must respect the agreements reached in the past […]”
He concluded that PAM will continue to act as a preferential platform for parliamentary diplomacy in the Euro-Mediterranean and Gulf regions to promote dialogue and to support peace initiatives, and for this “we count on the close and lasting partnership with and the support of the Arab IPU.”//