Vatican
City, 27 September 2013 (VIS) – The Bilateral Commission of the
Holy See and the State of Palestine, which is working on a Global
Agreement following the Basic Agreement, signed on 15 February 2000,
met yesterday in a Plenary Session in the Vatican to acknowledge the
work carried out at an informal level by the joint technical group
following the last official meeting held in Ramallah at the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs of the State of Palestine on 30 January 2013, and
to plan future progress, with the aim of accelerating the concluding
of the Agreement.
The
talks were chaired by Archbishop Antoine Camilleri, under-secretary
for the Holy See’s Relations with States, and by Ambassador Rawan
Sulaiman, assistant minister of Foreign Affairs for Multilateral
Affairs of the State of Palestine. The discussions took place in a
cordial and constructive atmosphere. Taking up the issues already
examined at an informal level, the Commission noted with great
satisfaction the progress achieved in formulating the text of the
Agreement, which deals with essential aspects of the life and
activity of the Catholic Church in Palestine, and encouraged the
efforts of the joint technical group, urging it to complete the
discussions on the remaining parts of the text, the formulation of
which is already at an advanced stage.
Both
Parties agree that the joint technical group will continue its work
in preparation for the next plenary meeting of the Bilateral
Commission, planned for early 2014.
The
Delegation of the Holy See was made up of the following members:
Archbishop Antoine Camilleri, under-secretary for Relations with
States; Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto, apostolic delegate to
Jerusalem and Palestine; Archbishop Antonio Franco, apostolic nuncio;
Msgr. Maurizio Malvestiti, under-secretary of the Congregation for
the Oriental Churches; Msgr. Waldemar Stanisław Sommertag, official
of the section for Relations with States of the Secretariat of State;
Fr. Emil Salayta, judicial vicar of the Latin Patriarchate of
Jerusalem.
The
members of the Palestinian Delegation were: Ambassador Rawan
Sulaiman, assistant minister of Foreign Affairs for Multilateral
Affairs; Ambassador Issa Kassissieh, representative of the State of
Palestine to the Holy See; Ammar Hijazi, deputy assistant minister of
Foreign Affairs for Multilateral Affairs; Azem Bishara, juridical
counsellor of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO); Ammar
Nisnas, counsellor at the Permanent Mission of Palestine to the Holy
See.
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