Itongadol.- Two visiting heads of government at individual meetings on Thursday with President Shimon Peres, described their being in Israel as historic. Both Joseph Muscat, the Prime Minister of Malta and Peter O\’Neill, the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea are the first sitting prime ministers of their respective countries to visit Israel
Muscat, a former journalist and investment advisor, has been in office only since March of this year. O\’Neill, who was a businessman before entering politics, has been in office since August last year.
Each came to Israel with a large delegation and each is interested in cooperating with Israel in the fields of science and technology. O\’Neill is also interested in developing the Defense Corporation Program that PNG has with Israel in order to rebuild and improve the standards of the PNG Defense Forces. He is also interested in upgrading PNG\’s overall security, and bilateral talks on this issue were already underway prior to his arrival in Israel. PNG and Israel established diplomatic relations in 1978, but until recent years when Israel began to pay far greater attention to Asia and the Pacific, little was done to enhance diplomatic ties.
Though rich in natural resources, with huge deposits of oil, natural gas and minerals, PNG with a population of 7,.5 million is lacking in innovation and technology said O\’Neill, who hopes to be able to cooperate with Israel to remedy this situation.
Because Israel has a very warm place in the hearts of the PNG population, 99 percent of whom are Christians, with a large Catholic majority, thousands of PNG pilgrims have come to Israel, said O\’Neill.
Before meeting with Peres Muscat met with a number of Israeli dignitaries including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, and Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai who escorted him to the city\’s Rabin memorial site. Muscat also signed a health and medical sciences cooperation agreement with Israel in Jerusalem and at his meetings with both Netanyahu and Peres discussed the need for cooperation on other levels as well, among them agriculture, energy and tourism.
In greeting each of the two prime ministers, Peres outlined his vision of a global economy in which companies rather than governments would help alleviate hunger and poverty through goodwill rather than imposition of laws that cannot be enforced. In making the case for science and technology, Peres told Muscat "the world is divided by violence and united by science". He spoke of the dangers of terrorism with each of the prime ministers.
Muscat mentioned the humanitarian crisis that Malta is having with the absorption of Syrian refugees and some Palestinians as well. Malta is affected by anything that happens in the Mediterranean region he stated, adding that stability in the Mediterranean is in Malta\’s interests.
"The well-being of Europe depends on peace and stability in the Mediterranean," he said.
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