Second Ministerial Meeting between Arab Countries and Pacific Islands Countries kicks off

Riyadh, SANA- With participation of Syria, the Second Ministerial Meeting between Arab Countries and the Pacific Islands Countries kicked off Monday in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

Delivering a speech during the meeting, Foreign and Expatriates Minister, Fayssal Mikdad stressed the importance of cooperation and coordination between countries and regional blocs to face the challenges, whose negative repercussions affect everyone without exception, and require a comprehensive and coordinated response to overcome their negative effects.

Mikdad pointed out that international solidarity and cooperation are of particularly important for developing countries under economic consequences of Covid-19, the effects of climate change, and the food and energy crises that threaten to undermine the achievements of decades of development in these countries and hinder their ability to fulfill the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

He reiterated Syria’s call for donor countries to honor their commitments to support the ability of the most vulnerable developing countries, especially the island states of the Pacific region, to deal with the harmful effects of climate change.

Mikdad also called for providing humanitarian aid away from selectivity and political conditionality and the imposition of illegal and immoral unilateral coercive measures that harm sustainable development plans in the target countries, and threaten their stability and the living and humanitarian conditions of their Peoples

Mikdad stressed the need to develop cooperation between countries of the South, including Arab countries and the Pacific Islands Countries, according to an agenda guided by the principles of national sovereignty of small and large countries, equality between them, non-interference in their internal affairs, and rejection of attempts to use international organizations to target specific countries in service of interventionist agendas sponsored by well-known Western countries.

He also stressed that Syria and other Arab countries actively contributed to supporting the right of peoples to self-determination and independence in various regions and regions.

Nisreen / Boushra / Shaza