The Mediterranean and Middle East Special Group
The Assembly created in 1995 a Mediterranean Special Group with the aim of opening a political dialogue with legislators from countries of the Middle East and North Africa. The programme gradually expanded and the Assembly has now established relations at various levels with the parliaments of nine countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean: Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Malta, Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania, as well as with the Palestinian Legislative Council. Preliminary contacts have recently been established with some countries of the Gulf.
The yearly activities of the Group include a visit to one of the regional partner and Mediterranean associate member countries, and two seminars, one of which is held in Naples, in co-operation with the Italian Parliament. These meetings seek to enhance parliamentary awareness of the problems of the region, promote a political dialogue between parliamentarians, and share best practices among members of the respective parliaments.
Read more about this topic: NATO Parliamentary Assembly
Famous quotes containing the words middle, east, special and/or group:
“Complete courage and absolute cowardice are extremes that very few men fall into. The vast middle space contains all the intermediate kinds and degrees of courage; and these differ as much from one another as men’s faces or their humors do.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“Before I finally went into winter quarters in November, I used to resort to the north- east side of Walden, which the sun, reflected from the pitch pine woods and the stony shore, made the fireside of the pond; it is so much pleasanter and wholesomer to be warmed by the sun while you can be, than by an artificial fire. I thus warmed myself by the still glowing embers which the summer, like a departed hunter, had left.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A special feature of the structure of our book is the monstrous but perfectly organic part that eavesdropping plays in it.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“We begin with friendships, and all our youth is a reconnoitering and recruiting of the holy fraternity they shall combine for the salvation of men. But so the remoter stars seem a nebula of united light, yet there is no group which a telescope will not resolve; and the dearest friends are separated by impassable gulfs.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)