President Donald Ramotar on Tuesday met the Honorary Envoy to the Middle East Ambassador George Hallaq for talks on Guyana’s interest in reinvigorating ties which the government had initiated with countries on the new frontiers.
President Romotar is following in the footsteps of his predecessor on this diplomatic agenda, the Government Information Agency (GINA). Guyana’s quest for new frontier relations had been halted by the political volatility and turmoil which had hit the Arab world, GINA noted.
Ambassador Hallaq, in an invited comment, told GINA that bureaucracy between the two sides had been in the combination of factors that impacted on the pace of the relations. However, he noted efforts at present to build relations with countries in Europe and North Africa along with the Middle East quest and spoke of the mechanism that supervises relations.
“Countries in the Middle East, are interested… we have to follow up and continue… and in the end we will succeed,” Ambassador Hallaq said.
Guyana’s former President Bharrat Jagdeo had ventured off on the new frontier quest in 2009 for relations with countries that were either immune or not heavily impacted by global financial crisis.
This, he had noted, was premised on the need for an aggressive approach at the world level to raise money for Guyana and the fact that in the Middle East, there are major investment aims.
State visits were made to Syria, Libya, Cyprus, Jordan, The United Arab Emirates, Qatar Kuwait and, Iran, where bilateral relations and avenues through which these relations could be strengthened were explored.
