The Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM) continued with its advocacy programme at the intra-regional level with a series of high-level meetings with diplomatic representatives in Malta. PAM Secretary General, Amb. Sergio Piazzi had two intensive working meetings with the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Malta, H.E. Vladimir Malygin, and the Ambassador of the Republic of China, H.E. Jiang Jiang.
Ambassadors Piazzi and Malygin discussed the possibility to further strengthen cooperation between PAM and the Russian Parliament, which had expressed interest in the status of Associate member of PAM.
The PAM Secretary General recalled that the Russian Parliament also participates at regular intervals in PAM events, among which the Rome meeting at the end of March 2017, dedicated to the Evaluation of the role of national parliaments in promoting States’ implementation of the United Nations Security Council’s resolutions on Terrorism and Foreign Terrorist Fighters.
Ambassador Piazzi also referred to relations with the Interparliamentary Assembly of Member Nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States (IPA- CIS), with which cooperation is ongoing. He recalled that PAM President Roque, had recently participated at a session of the IPA –CIS held in St. Petersburg, where he called for further strengthening of the partnership between PAM and IPA-CIS, possibly through the creation of a joint working group that could represent an essential tool in order to find common answers to shared problems in the respective regions.
Other issues dealt with during the meeting were the situation in Syria and possible immediate developments to reach a solution to the conflict and save further suffering to the population, and PAM’s role in Libya, especially in the action necessary to foster parliamentary capacity building and national reconciliation. To this effect, PAM is planning a mission to Libya in order, among others, to promote consensus on the tripartite agreement, in conjunction with the UN Special Representative and the UNDP Arab Bureau.
The Ambassador of China, H.E. Jian Jiang, was presented with an overview of PAM activities particularly those dealing with terrorism, the cooperation with the UN Security Council CTED and the involvement of the member states of the IPA-CIS. Amb. Sergio Piazzi expressed the importance of the participation of the National People’s Congress of China in PAM’s activities in light of the relevance of China on a number of issues that cannot be considered only “Mediterranean”, such as terrorism, trade and climate change.