Hebron Mayor Khaled Osaily took part a few days ago in the inauguration of the new Palestinian Embassy in Ankara. The Embassy was inaugurated by President Mahmoud Abbas accompanied by a PNA delegation in the presence of Turkish President Abdullah Gul, numerous political and official personalities and members of the diplomatic corps in Turkey.

At the end of the ceremony, Osaily met with Palestinian Ambassador Ma‘rouf and the Embassy‘s staff in order to examine means to activate commercial and municipal relations between Turkish cities and Hebron. Osaily praised the role played by Ambassador Ma‘rouf and Palestinian diplomats in strengthening Palestinian-Turkish ties and facilitating the work of Palestinian institutions and individuals in Turkey through maintaining contacts with Palestinian institutions and building networks with Turkish official institutions and CSOs.

On the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony, Osaily met with a number of representatives and diplomatic corpses from Arab and European countries. Talks tackled means to enhance cooperation between their municipalities and Hebron as well as potential joint ventures in the fields of information exchange, twinning agreements and project implementation to improve services to citizens and to enhance their daily lives.

Osaily also met with Musa Kulakl?kaya, President of the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA) to discuss possible support to projects in Hebron especially in the fields of heritage, rehabilitating historic buildings, infrastructure, as well as cultural and youth projects. Osaily highlighted to Mr. Kulakl?kaya the importance given by his Municipality to heritage and historic projects, mainly the rehabilitation of historic buildings in Hebron as well as projects related to youth which constitute the majority of Palestinians according to statistics.

Upon his return, Osaily said that meetings held on the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony were as important as the inauguration itself. A number of potential future projects in Hebron were discussed, international and Arab channels to provide more support to Hebron were explored, and "Hebron as a humanitarian heritage" project was activated. The project is to be launched in Paris in the coming few months.