Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, met with the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Charlie Flanagan, today in the Foreign Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n
Crowe raised key Foreign Affairs issues with Minister Flanagan including the lifting of the blockade of Gaza, recognising the Palestinian State, the Kurdish fight against ISIS, the human rights abuses in Bahrain, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).<\/p>\n
Deputy Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was the first time Minister Flanagan has met the Foreign Affairs Committee and I had a lot to raise with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI called on him to use the upcoming European Foreign Affairs Council meeting as an opportunity for the EU to push for a complete lifting of Israel\u2019s illegal blockade of Gaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdditionally I called on him to make moves to officially recognise the State of Palestine and send a strong message to the Palestinian people that Ireland supports their right to self-determination and a two-state peace process.<\/p>\n
\u201cI raised with him the dire situation in Kobani and called on him to ensure that we will support the Kurdish people in their struggle against ISIS and that we will directly supply them with the humanitarian aid they need.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also brought up the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and explained Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s opposition to the Investor State Dispute Mechanism (ISDS) mechanism in TTIP and my concern with the overall secrecy of the talks, and asked him to raise this with his colleagues<\/p>\n
\u201cI told the Minister of the arrest and continued incarceration of Ibrahim Halawa, an Irish citizen imprisoned without due process in Egypt, and asked him to use his office to ensure that Ibrahim gets all the consular assistance he needs, and that he is released and can come home as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cLastly I brought his attention to the case of Nabeel Rajab, a human rights and democracy activist in Bahrain, who was arrested for sending a tweet critical of the Bahrain. I asked the Minister to raise Nabeel\u2019s case with the Bahraini Government and his European counterparts.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, met with the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Charlie Flanagan, today in the Foreign Affairs Committee. Crowe raised key Foreign Affairs issues with Minister Flanagan including the lifting of the blockade of Gaza, recognising the Palestinian State, the Kurdish fight against ISIS, the human rights […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,36,65,14,52,122,50,135,48,134,47,117,113,136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bahrain","category-department-of-foreign-affairs-and-trade","category-egypt","category-foreign-affairs","category-foreign-affairs-committee","category-gaza","category-human-rights","category-isis","category-israel","category-kurds","category-palestine","category-prisoners","category-ttip","category-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1941,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940\/revisions\/1941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}