Arab Par'l Speaker Meets Inter-Parliamentary Union Leaders, UN Officials in Geneva

At the invitation of the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the United Nations Office in Vienna, Adel bin Abdul Rahman Al-Assoumi, the Speaker of the Arab Parliament is heading a high-level delegation from the Arab Parliament to Geneva and Vienna, and the delegation consisting of “Abdulwahid Radi,” the former Speaker of the Moroccan Parliament and the former President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Dr. Mastoura bint Obaid Al-Shamri, Head of the Committee on Social, Educational and Cultural Affairs, Women and Youth, MP Amira Sharaf El-Din, Member of the Arab Parliament, in addition to the Secretary-General of the Arab Observatory for Human Rights and Director of the Center for Arab Parliamentary Diplomacy.

This visit will witness a number of important meetings during which a number of agreements and cooperation protocols will be signed, including the agreement on technical and institutional cooperation between the Arab Parliament and the Inter-Parliamentary Union to strengthen cooperation tools and mechanisms between the two sides, with the aim of opening new horizons for cooperation and institutional partnership.

This visit also comes within the framework of the Arab Parliament’s keenness to enhance the role of Arab parliamentary diplomacy through openness to international and regional parliaments with the aim of serving the issues of the Arab region and building partnership relations that would enhance the role of the Arab Parliament in coordinating Arab parliamentary positions and efforts and supporting Arab issues in parliamentary forums on the international level.

Parliament also seeks, within the framework of the new action strategy, to build special institutional relations in the areas of empowering women and to meet with the leaders of the Inter-Parliamentary Union concerned with women, in light of the Arab Parliament’s endeavor to support Arab parliaments to raise their representation at the parliamentary level, confront violence and forms of discrimination against them, in addition to cooperating In the field of dialogue among civilizations and cultures and the rejection of hate speech and violence.

The Speaker of the Arab Parliament and the accompanying delegation will also visit Vienna, during which he will hold a meeting with Dr. Ghada Wali, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV), and Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in order to agree on cooperation and coordination towards a number of issues.

He will also meet with leaders of the Austrian Parliament, and coordination will take place on the first global parliamentary summit, which is scheduled to be held in Austria on September 9, 2021, this year.