Fr. Marcello Ghirlando ofm will be Vatican representative for U.N. international meeting on Palestine. The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, in accordance with its mandate to mobilize international support for the Middle East peace process, will convene the United Nations International Meeting on the Question of Palestine in Malta on the 3rd and 4th June 2008. The theme of the meeting is ‘Advancing the peace process – Challenges facing the parties’.

The objective of the Meeting is to foster greater support by the international community for the creation of a climate conductive to the advancement of the permanent status negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Participants in the Meeting will discuss the impact of the settlement construction on the current political process and the need for the parties to meet Road Map commitments. They will also examine the effects of the construction of the wall in the Occupied West Bank, and the importance of finding a solution to the question of Jerusalem.

Fr. Marcello Ghirlando OFM, of the Franciscan Province of Saint Paul the Apostle in Malta, will be representing the Holy See in this International Meeting. Fr. Marcello is currently a lecturer of Holy Scripture at the Faculty of Theology of the Malta University. He was Commissary for the Holy Land in Malta between 1993 and 2002.