Remarks by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Liberman after meeting with Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula
Nairobi
It really gives me great pleasure to be here today and to meet my old friend from yesterday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
We really appreciate the long-lived and very good relations between our two countries. Even during our histories, with all the troubles and problems, we kept our relations stable and in good shape. And we appreciate this cooperation and this history. These strong ties go back to the days when both our countries were newly established states recovering from foreign rule and racism, and building our modern societies in keeping with our cultural and historical legacies.
Our cooperation on important areas such as you mentioned - medicine, culture and homeland security - is very close and productive. We are also very interested in bringing this cooperation to an even higher level and Israel really can contribute to these relations through manpower and experience. Israel is a small country with no raw materials. Israel proved itself with knowledge, with technology. Every country can move to a higher level of life, even without any raw materials.
Both our countries also face very similar problems of terror and threats from extremist groups. This cooperation is also very important for our people and I think that both of our nations have a real desire to see a true and stable peace - not just slogans, but really to achieve results that will end the suffering from terror, the atrocities of war and confrontation.
We are happy to see that you have a very significant business community here in Nairobi. We are happy to see that people feel very good. There has also been goodwill from the authorities and the business community and I was happy to see interest in our business community and the possibilities here in Kenya of developing and investing in some projects. We feel the same. I brought with me Israeli businesspeople who also have an interest in improving connections between our nations.
And lastly, we are very happy here and feel very good. We held meetings with your colleagues, and one with your president which was also very successful. I appreciate the hospitality of the government and the people of Kenya , and wish you security, prosperity and continued good relations and friendship between our two nations.