Tour seeks to encourage current opportunities for peace

AMMAN (JT) - René van der Linden, president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), is to visit Jordan next week as part of a Middle East tour which will take him to Israel and the Palestinian territories, according to a statement by his office.

Van der Linden’s regional August 18-24 tour is intended to encourage “opportunities presented by the current situation to achieve sustainable peace in the region and to promote inter-religious dialogue,” the statement said.

He is scheduled to arrive in Jordan on Saturday, and is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit, Senate President Zeid Rifai and Lower House Speaker Abdul Hadi Majali.

At the conclusion of his visit on August 20, he will head to Israel and the Palestinian territories, according to the statement.

In Israel, van der Linden is scheduled to meet President Shimon Peres and Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon, as well as the Speaker of the Knesset Dalia Itzik. He will also meet the chief rabbis in Israel, Rabbi Yona Metzger and Rabbi Shlomo Amar, and participate in an inter-religious forum.

The statement said that he will visit the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, and meet the families of abducted soldiers. In addition, “he will also visit Sderot, close to Gaza, which has been subject to rocket attacks”.

In Palestine, the PACE president plans to hold talks with President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, as well as PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat and Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Second Deputy Speaker Hasan Khreishe, among others.

He is also due to visit the tomb of the late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat and meet the families of PLC members detained by the Israeli authorities, the statement added.

The Parliamentary Assembly - made up of 318 parliamentarians from the 47 Council of Europe member states - regularly debates the situation in the Middle East and brings together parliamentarians from all sides in the conflict.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Israeli Knesset’s observer status with the assembly.

In recent years, the assembly has also developed formal, structured working relations with members of the PLC.