SINGAPORE: Former Senior Parliamentary Secretary Hawazi Daipi will be Singapore’s new non-resident representative to the Palestinian Territories, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said on Monday (Nov 7).
In a press release, MFA said Senior Minister of State for Defence and Foreign Affairs Maliki Osman, who is currently on a working visit to the Middle East, announced Mr Hawazi’s appointment during meetings in Ramallah with Palestinian National Authority (PNA) leaders President Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad Al-Maliki, Minister of Education and Higher Education Sabri Saidam and Minister of National Economy Abeer Odeh.
“The PNA leaders welcomed the appointment,” MFA said.
As non-resident representative to PNA, Mr Hawazi will coordinate Singapore’s Enhanced Technical Assistance Package for the Palestinians. In April this year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had announced that Singapore would double the package to help the Palestinians with capacity-building from S$5 million to S$10 million.
Senior Minister of State Maliki Osman and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Photo: MFA)
During the meetings, Mr Maliki reiterated Singapore’s commitment to support the capacity-building efforts of the Palestinian people, MFA said. It added that more than 220 Palestinians have attended courses under the Singapore Cooperation Programme (SCP), which provides training for foreign officials in areas like public governance and administration, urban planning and healthcare in Singapore.
Mr Maliki also stressed Singapore’s “consistent position and longstanding support for the two-state solution with Israel and Palestine living side-by-side in peace and security” and “expressed the hope that both sides would resume negotiations and make progress towards a just and durable solution”, according to the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
MFA said that Mr Maliki will host a dinner for senior Palestinian alumni of the SCP on Monday. He will also visit the Palestine Red Crescent Society Headquarters and meet the Mayor of Al Bireh Municipality Fawazi Abed Salim, to convey a donation of books by the National Library Board to the Al Bireh Public Library on Tuesday, before departing for Jordan.
