A Dundee politician is in the Middle East to meet Jordanian prime minister Dr Marouf al-Bakheit.
Dundee City West MSP Joe FitzPatrick is using the first week of the Scottish Parliamentary recess to join a fact-finding delegation of European MPs and MEPs to Palestine.
The trip was organised by the Council for European Palestinian Relations (CEPR), which has been raising awareness about the Palestinian quest for statehood building up to its UN membership application last month.
The delegation met Dr Al-Bakheit and entered Palestine through the Allenby border.
Mr FitzPatrick said: “It took three hours to get us through the border but we are now in Palestine and heading for East Jerusalem.
“I am also hopeful that I might be able to go to Nablus although negotiations are still ongoing about that.
“It is important that we keep up international scrutiny of the present situation and help move forward attempts to resolve it, with a two-state solution, based on 1967 borders.”
The CEPR has organised numerous delegations of European and UK parliamentarians to visit Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and Jerusalem, and most recently the Gaza Strip.
Scottish firefighters are also driving to the Middle East in an initiative organised by the Fire Brigades Union to hand over two ‘retired’ fire engines and fire equipment to Dundee’s twinned city of Nablus.