UAE Representative to Arab League reviews achievements made during UAE's presidency of 144th session of AL's Ministerial Council

CAIRO, 9th March, 2016 (WAM) –Mohammed bin Nakhira Al Dhaheri, the UAE’s Ambassador to Egypt and Permanent Representative to the Arab League, yesterday said the UAE, under the directives of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has made maximum efforts since it took over the presidency of the Arab League to advance Arab joint actions so as to fulfil aspirations of the Arab people and serve higher interests of countries in the region. ''We have made constant and consistent efforts to maintain co-ordinated stances towards issues and crises facing the Arab region, which is passing through an exceptional phase. It has increasingly imposed upon us tremendously complicated and far-reaching challenges which required joint action under a strategic framework that needed coordinated efforts and continuous consultation so as to reach a common Arab stance towards these concerns and in a manner that strengthens our relations with regional and international order,'' Al Dhaheri said in a statement before the 145th works of the Arab League's Ministerial Council at the permanent representatives. The meeting will hammer out the agenda for the next Thursday's meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Egyptian capital, Cairo. ''Over the past six months, our concern was focussed on a variety of Arab issues of top priority including the Palestinian Cause, crises in Syria, Yemen and Libya, continuous occupation by Iran of the UAE's three islands, Syrian refugees, Israel's violations against the Al Aqsa Mosque, counter-terrorism, Iranian attacks on the Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran, Iranian interference into internal affairs of Arab countries, threats to Arab national security and the Turkish incursion into Iraq,'' he added. ''During this session, we have managed to create an atmosphere of mutual confidence and convergence among Arabs. The latest of these reconciliatory efforts was the recent retreat of Arab foreign ministers in Abu Dhabi which came out with a common understanding and stances towards a host of pressing issues which needed a unified perspective to address them,'' he remarked. The UAE presidency of the session, he noted, was characterised with collective efforts to serve Arab issues where a series of meetings were convened to follow up and assess various aspects of Arab joint actions and reconsider current priorities through fruitful interaction with and opening up to many regional organisations and building of promising relations with international cooperation forums including the recent Russian-Arab Cooperation Forum in Moscow, Arab-India Cooperation Forum in Bahrain, the Summit of South American-Arab Countries in Riyadh and the meeting of the EU Political and Security Committee (PSC) and the League of Arab States' Permanent Representatives in Brussels. These meetings, he went on to say, had formed an important step towards enhancement of co-operation and integration with these countries. He noted that tackling the scourge of terrorism and organised crime and systematic violence poses a true challenge that required approaches which pay a special attention to social, economic and cultural factors, crystallise clear concepts and explore and find inclusive solutions to internal problems,'' he concluded. The UAE handed over the rotating presidency of the 145th session of the Arab League's Ministerial Council to Bahrain. In his acceptance remarks, Ambassador of Bahrain to the Arab Republic of Egypt and Permanent Representative to the Arab League, Sheikh Rashid bin Abdulrahman, warned that foreign expansion and hegemony schemes were seeking to sow seeds of discord which could threaten the unity of Arab countries. – Emirates News Agency, WAM - http://www.wam.ae/en/news/emirates/1395292568279.html