Eduardo González
The third tour of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, through the Middle East, which begins today in Jordan and will conclude on Thursday in Egypt, will include a meeting with his Jordanian counterpart, Ayman Safadi, a visit to a refugee camp of the Agency of the United Nations for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Amman and two meetings with his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry, and with the secretary general of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, in Cairo.
The destinations of the tour will be Jordan and Egypt, two countries bordering Israel and Palestine and key in the ongoing negotiations for the release of hostages and the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. “Albares thus fulfills the commitment he made during his first tour of Lebanon and Iraq, at the end of January, to travel frequently to the region to seek solutions to the conflict,” the Ministry recalled yesterday. “In just a month and a half, in addition to those countries, the minister has visited Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which allowed him to address the situation with these three relevant Gulf actors,” it added.
The first stage of the trip will be Amman. Albares, who will arrive tomorrow in the Jordanian capital in the middle of Ramadan, has been personally invited by Ayman Safadi to an iftar, the dinner with which the fast is broken after sunset and which symbolizes a deep friendship by sharing a table. at such an important time of day for the Islamic world.
Tomorrow’s agenda in Amman will be focused, especially, on the meeting with the Jordanian Foreign Minister, with whom he will have the opportunity to review “the worrying situation in the region.” The Spanish minister and his Jordanian counterpart also plan to give details of that meeting at a press conference.
Subsequently, Albares will visit a UNRWA refugee camp in Jordan just a week after having announced in Madrid to the commissioner general of this United Nations agency, Philippe Lazzarini, the donation of an additional 20 million euros, despite the decision of a group of countries to freeze their contributions after a dozen of the agency’s employees (out of a workforce of 30,000) have been accused of having participated in the Hamas attacks of October 7.
Cairo will be the second stage of the trip, “because it is the center where the main nucleus of the negotiations is located and where some of the main actors with the capacity to influence the resolution of the serious Israeli-Palestinian conflict are located,” he continued. the Ministry. Albares will also arrive tomorrow in Cairo, where he will hold a meeting with the directors of UN agencies that carry out his work in the country.
On Thursday he will be received by Sameh Shoukry, with whom both will analyze the “solutions that are being considered to give a new impetus to peace and how the two countries can jointly contribute to facilitating that objective,” the Ministry continued. The two ministers will appear before the media after political consultations between the two countries.
Despite the limitations that a period like Ramadan implies, Minister Albares plans to be received at the highest level by the Egyptian authorities, as well as by the Secretary General of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit. Albares will complete the day in Cairo with a meeting with correspondents from the Spanish media, with whom he will take stock of the tour.
