House Chairperson and hon members. The ACDP would like to congratulate hon Dr Naledi Pandor on her appointment to head this very important Department of International Relations and Co-operation, DIRCO.
I also want to give credit to my former colleague, Ms Cheryllyn Dudley, who did a sterling job while she served on his committee for many years. In one of her many speeches she said, and I want to quote her:
The ACDP will support all government efforts to promote peace and sustainable development within South Africa, regionally and globally.
This position will not change in the ACDP as we are committed to peace, reconciliation and nation building.
The ACDP is aware that pressure is constantly put on South Africa to take sides in many conflicts. We would like to encourage government to, despite the pressure, remain committed to meaningful and positive engagement with all stakeholders, particularly when dealing with Middle East conflicts. Government should attempt to not only remain impartial at all times, but also aim to convince those in conflicts that peaceful negotiations are the only way to restore peace, reconciliation
and stability in their land, and we hope that they will ultimately bring them prosperity too.
Our peacekeeping forces have to date, managed to remain impartial in the missions they have undertaken on the continent and for that we are grateful. The ACDP would like to see government maintaining the same position of impartiality wherever South Africa is involved in mediation everywhere in the world, including in the Middle East.
Obviously, a number of things have been said about the conflict between Israel and Palestine; that also deserves a comment from the ACDP. South Africa, Chairperson, has the opportunity to negotiate peaceful co-existence between Israel and Palestine. But attitudes have to change and South Africa must prove itself to be a credible and impartial mediator.
If government is truly committed to peaceful co-existence, then they should be heard condemning Iran, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and all other Israel haters who are calling for the destruction of the state of Israel. Otherwise all the noise that
is being made about world peace is hypocrisy. Nobody or no country in the world should have the right to try to annihilate another nation. That should be totally unacceptable.
The mandate of the Department of International Relations and Co- operation is, among other things, to coordinate and align South Africa's policy abroad and monitor developments in the international arena. It is also to contribute to the creation of an enabling international environment for South Africa to do trade abroad. Furthermore [Time expired.]