Felipe VI claims that “diplomacy for peace” must be a priority of foreign action in 2024
King Felipe VI has defended the recognition of a Palestinian State that lives in peace alongside Israel as the way to “stop the cycle of violence” that exists in the Middle East and prevent it from being repeated in the future.
He was so forceful during his speech at the closing of the Conference of Ambassadors, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he recognized that “the tragedy that Gaza is experiencing is shaking the conscience of Humanity, as did the terrorist attack.” “perpetrated by Hamas against Israel on October 7, “the worst in its history.”
Don Felipe has insisted that we must condemn what happened and ask for the release of all the hostages, as well as demanding “respect for International Law and International Humanitarian Law”, although without expressly mentioning Israel at this point.
But also, he added, “we must continue to insist that without a political solution, which involves the establishment of the Palestinian State alongside Israel, it will not be possible to stop this cycle of violence or prevent it from being repeated.”
The King recalled that precisely “this was the promise of the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference and the international community must mobilize to help the parties materialize it.”
The monarch has celebrated that the motto of the VIII Conference of Ambassadors is precisely “diplomacy for peace”, which has maintained that, in a context in which “Europe and the world face an uncertain future in which values and principles of our democracies are threatened by acts of aggression such as that of Russia against Ukraine or by phenomena such as terrorism”, it must be “one of the priorities for Spanish foreign action” in 2024.
In this sense, he has stressed that the work of the ambassadors “is key to reversing the situation in the face of aggressions such as that suffered by Ukraine, in the face of crises such as the one in the Middle East, or in the face of conflicts and instability in many places in Africa such as the Sahel. “.
On the other hand, Felipe VI has placed special emphasis on relations with Latin America and has recalled that the Constitution itself establishes the mandate to promote relations with these countries. In this sense, he has assured that the Crown “will continue to be committed to promoting increasingly intense and solid relations with the peoples of Ibero-America.”
In line with this, he referred to his attendance this weekend at the inauguration of the president of Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo, and predicted that in 2024 these trips “will be frequent” since there are several countries holding elections, at the same time time that he has defended the importance of this “democratic support” that has borne “so many fruits” in these years and that also “generates personal ties.”
“The defense of democracy and the rule of law are hallmarks of this community that we are building together” and constitute “very necessary and timely qualities in these times in which there is an international debate about the validity of values ??and their significance in the different regions, as well as the difficulties in finding common and coordinated solutions to problems in the global space,” he added.
REPRESENTATION ROLE ABROAD
The King has acknowledged that he also “gladly” assumes his role of international representation, not only “out of institutional interest” but also out of “personal vocation.”
As he highlighted, the trips abroad that he has made in recent years have allowed him to confirm that Spain “has an excellent reputation and is respected for its rich historical and cultural background, but, above all, because it has been able to find ways to prosper economically and socially and maintain a specific weight in different regions, without failing to take into account the needs of the most fragile countries or those with serious difficulties.
Likewise, he took the opportunity to thank and praise the work of the ambassadors. “Thank you for the great daily and continuous work that you do at the service of all Spaniards,” he told them.
“You have the great responsibility of safeguarding our interests; but the opportunity to create understanding, to contribute to the formation of consensus, to preserve and project the values ??of tolerance, solidarity, pluralism and respect for rights and dignity also depends on you. of the person that Spanish society has always defended”, he stressed.
For his part, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, has highlighted the monarch’s “commitment” to the “projection and presence of Spain” as well as “the excellent presentation he makes of Spain as a country modern, democratic, plural and diverse, like that advanced democracy committed to peace, dialogue, agreement, harmony and multilateralism that we are.”
