Cairo – The last meeting of high-level employees of the Arab and South American countries before the next edition of the summit of heads of state and government of both regions took place last week, in Cairo, the capital of Egypt. There were two days of work that included delegations from almost all nations involved, except for Somalia and Suriname. The summit should take place in early April, in Doha, Qatar.
The Brazilian delegation was headed by the ambassador of Brazil to Cairo, Cesário Melantônio Neto, and included the presence of five other members, among them the director of the Regional Mechanisms Department, Gilberto Moura, and the head of the Summit Follow-Up Division, Ivanise Maciel, both from the Brazilian Foreign Office.
The works were focussed on preparation of the minutes of the Doha final declaration, which still needs approval of the Foreign Ministers of both blocks, which should take place in a meeting in Cairo in early March. "The document is practically ready. Although the Arab and South American groups agree about the 77 paragraphs of the content, it is still possible for there to be some amendment on the ministerial level," explained the permanent delegate of Egypt to the Arab League, ambassador Hazem Khairat, who participated in the event.
He guarantees, however, that relations between countries in both blocs stand out due to the fluidity in the works and to the facility with which they can reach agreements during meetings. "This rarely takes place in events that involve such a large number of countries, as is the case with the 34 that are included in the summit and the 32 present in the meeting," pointed out Khairat, adding that the Arab side is very optimistic with regard to the perspective of closer ties with the South American nations.
The document stipulates the creation and strengthening of joint work and cooperation mechanisms among both blocs in a varied scope of sectors, like economics, trade, science and technology, environment, energy, education, culture, tourism and the social area.
According to Gilberto Moura, apart from cooperation in areas traditionally discussed, both blocks are exploring the question of improvement of the service infrastructure. "This regards the areas of works that contribute to greater cooperation in the trade area and in other areas. Among them, we could identify the construction of airports, the greater aerial connection between both regions or the construction of new ports," said Moura.
According to him, the greater number of air connections is a shared concern between Arabs and South Americans. "Emirates airline already flies between Dubai and São Paulo and its flights are always full. Qatar Airways is also forecasting a possible flight between both regions. There is also a possibility of Egypt doing the same," said Moura.
Another area that interests the Arabs and South Americans very much is improvement of cooperation in the area of water resources and the fight against desertification. "Several meetings between both groups have already taken place, including one in Recife, in August last year, which prepared the meeting of ministers responsible for water resources, in Riyadh, in November 2008," said Moura, adding that "this is an area where we identify several concrete projects, like environmental monitoring through the use of a Chinese satellite or desalination of sea water."
Greater diplomatic involvement between Brazil and the South American nations in aid to Palestine is taking on more and more important dimensions. "Brazil is one of the countries that most seeks to show the importance of South-South cooperation in several forums, so we believe that we are already natural friends of this region and would like to contribute with several concrete projects for assistance to the Palestinian population, especially the youths. So we believe that the idea of creating a sports centre could be a way to help, to generate work and to integrate Palestinian youths into the process of reconstruction of their country," finished off Moura.
*Translated by Mark Ament
