It’s my great pleasure to welcome President Humala to Jerusalem.

Mr. President, I appreciate your friendship and your commitment to building an even stronger relationship between Peru and Israel. Specifically, I want to thank you for supporting Israel’s status as an observer state in the Pacific Alliance. We view it as something of great importance for us and for the countries of the Pacific Alliance. I visited Peru many years ago, and I know that there’s been a tremendous development, economic development in Peru in the last decade.

I think this new partnership between us will help the economic development of Peru and of course, Israel’s own economic plans. We’re already cooperating in areas of water and infrastructure and security – areas that are important to the people of Peru and I am prepared to discuss with you, I look forward to discussing with you how we can make this cooperation even more beneficial to our peoples. We remember that Peru supported Israel’s bid for statehood in 1947 in the United Nations, so this is a friendship that has deep roots and I believe will have  big branches in the comi9ng years.

Mr. President, we all want to see a more peaceful world, and I think that the greatest threat to this peaceful world is Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons. Tomorrow the P5+1 will continue, will resume its negotiations with Iran. Thus far, the only ones who have gained from these negotiations have been the Iranians. They’ve given practically nothing, but they’ve gained a lot. They’ve gained a reduction of sanctions, the Iranian economy is improving, but today the President, the Ruler of Iran Khamenei has said that these negotiations will come to nothing, to nothing in terms of stopping Iran’s nuclear program, but to a lot when it comes to easing the sanctions on Iran’s economy. Iran, unfortunately, continues its aggressive behavior, both in arming terrorist groups and supporting the butchery of the Assad regime and calling for Israel’s destruction and in subversive activities everywhere around the world, including in Latin America. So we believe a different policy is required - one that requires Iran to stop its aggression, to stop its military nuclear program, to become a nation among nations and not a rogue state that arms itself with nuclear weapons. I think that’s important for Israel, I think it’s important for Peru, I think it’s important for the peace of the world.

Mr. President, I know that you are investing a lot of effort to improve the life of your people, to embark on a very exciting economic union that I think can have great potential in the world economy. Israel is your partner both in Peru and in the Pacific Alliance. We think we can bring our technology, our science and our experience to our mutual benefit, and we are pleased to do it with a long-time friend. We consider you a long-time friend. Welcome to Jerusalem.

Mr. Prime Minister Netanyahu, We’re very happy to be here and to bring the message from Peru that we wish to further strengthen our friendship, our cooperation and our work together in this world.

In these past decades, Peru has experienced significant economic growth. We have tripled our GDP and at the same time we are facing new challenges, both in Peru and in the world. I believe that the friendship that we’re building between Peru and Israel is experiencing one of its top moments at the time. And we wish to continue with this strong friendship.

However, in the field of trade, I think we still have a long way to go. We are building and consolidating a legal framework, an environment of trust where we can work on Israel investment as there are already some Israeli investments. We already have investments in the field of energy, but we wish to welcome them in other fields. We also would like to thank Israel for its cooperation policy, particularly in the field of agriculture and water management. At the present time, we have Peruvian students who are learning about agricultural practices here in Israel. We greatly value this and we would like to work on mutually developing the skills of our young generations. Also, I’d like to point out that Peru has an objective of consolidating its industry and technology. And we wish to work on technology transfers which we understand is a strength of Israel.

Peoples like those of Israel and Peru and others around the world who have overcome difficult times know really how to value peace. We all wish this peace to be lasting and solid because this is what future generations deserve. This is why Peru has a consistent international policy that goes hand-in-hand with those of international organizations, and we will continue on the peace building efforts of the world.

On the other hand, we are convinced that Peru and Israel have challenges ahead, and this is why we greatly welcome Israel as an observer to the Pacific Alliance. It is a very dynamic economic. We believe that Israel’s partnership will help in consolidating and further building this group.

We wish to further strengthen areas in education, health and agriculture with Israel. I would like to thank invitation that was sent to me by President Shimon Peres, and I hope that my visit here will help us to further strengthen our bonds and our ties of friendship, and that we can take our partnership to the next level and become true partners.

Thank you very much.