Magen David Adom To Join Red Cross In December

2005-10-31

Communicated by the Foreign Minister's Bureau

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom met this morning (Monday, 31 October) with Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey at the home of the Swiss ambassador.

The Swiss minister informed Minister Shalom that she intends to issue invitations in the coming days to an international diplomatic conference at the senior official and ambassadorial level, to which 192 countries would be invited, including the Vatican. The purpose of the conference, which is to take place in Geneva at the beginning of December, is to ratify the addition of Israel's Magen David Adom to the International Committee of the Red Cross as a life-saving organization.

It should be pointed out that this is an important achievement for Israel's many diplomatic efforts in recent years to gain recognition of Magen David Adom as a life-saving organization.

Minister Shalom said that it is necessary to continue to act with determination and not surrender to the extortion of the Arab countries and Palestinian elements that are trying to impose all sorts of demands as a condition for their agreement to the Red Cross move.

Shalom spoke with his Swiss counterpart, who was en route to Lebanon, about the importance of Lebanese independence and the continuation of international pressure on Syria, a country that supports terrorism, so that it should cease its involvement in the internal affairs of Lebanon and Iraq.

With regard to the Iranian situation, Minister Calmy-Rey reiterated her condemnation of Iranian statement's against Israel. Minister Shalom said that it is precisely now that international pressure should be kept up in a united front in advance of the meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency meeting in Vienna on 24 November, so that the agency will submit the issue of Iran's nuclear development to an urgent session of the United Nations Security Council and the council can halt this nuclear program, which endangers the entire world.

Source: IMRA – Independent Media Review and Analysis