Peru's President Ollanta Humala held a meeting with his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres at the president's office in Jerusalem on Monday within the framework of his first official visit to the Middle East country.
During the meeting, both head of States agreed on strengthening the two countries' bilateral relationship by increasing cooperation in the economic, scientific and agricultural fields, according to the press office of the Israeli President.
President Humala was accompanied by the Peruvian ministers of Foreign Affairs, Eda Rivas; Economy and Finance, Luis Miguel Castilla, and Agriculture, Milton Von Hesse as well as by Carlos Herrera, official from Peru's Private Investment Agency (ProInversion).
The visiting Peruvian leader followed his scheduled activities in the Holy Land by heading to the Knesset (Israel's Congress) to hold talks with its speaker Yuli-Yoel Edelstein.
Later, Humala attended a wreath-laying ceremony at Mount Herzl where the State of Israel buries its leaders and many of its wartime fallen.
The top authority of the Andean nation is also set to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial to lay a wreath at the Hall of Remembrance. Those two sites, perched on adjacent hilltops, together embody Israel’s foundational myth of rising out of the charred remains of European Jewry.
President Humala landed in Israel on Saturday night, as he started a nine-day state visit to several Middle Eastern countries including Palestine and Qatar.
(END) ASH/LOG
Published: 2/17/2014