Islamabad, Mar 30 /DNA/ – COMSTECH organized a virtual orientation session on Palestine programme which includes offer of 500 fellowships and scholarships for Palestinian nationals by the Pakistani member universities of COMSTECH Consortium of Excellence on Wednesday.
The Coordinator General COMSTECH welcomed the participants of the session and said that I am absolutely pleased to have this session and delighted to have very prominent officials from Palestine along with the Ambassador of Palestine, H.E. Mr. Ahmed Jawad A.A. Rabei in Pakistan.
Prof. Choudhary said this programme of scholarships and research fellowships is indeed a culmination of lots of thoughts and work in which the Palestinian ambassador has played an extremely important role along with Mr. Murtaza Noor who is advising us on international relations and coordinating our efforts with the universities of Pakistan.
He said that the incident after incident, and atrocities after atrocities, the history is full of these annoying and heart breaking events which we see in Palestine and that have made all of us sensitive to the needs of our brothers and sisters in Palestine. We have good understanding and appreciation of Palestinian cause, based on these feeling we decided to work closely with many universities in Pakistan to help our brothers and sisters in Palestine to continue their education in different fields largely in science and technology and engineering so they can go back and server their country and contribute in furthering the cause of Palestine, and this is the best thing which we could do.
Prof. Choudhary said that we have the support of ministry of science and technology, ministry of foreign affairs and the excellency president of Pakistan, who is also the chairman of COMSTECH. The foreign minister of Palestine was informed by the President of Pakistan on the occasion of CFM about this programme. He informed that there will be a ceremonial launching of this programme after Eid ul Fitr. Host institutions are eagerly waiting Palestinian scholars to provide them an excellent environment and opportunity of learning in different fields of science and technology and engineering.
Dr. Basri Saleh, Deputy Minister for Higher Education, conveyed his best regards to all from Palestine. On behalf of Palestinian Scientific Research, we are grateful for initiative of the President of Pakistan Dr. Arif Alvi to provide research fellowships and scholarships opportunities to Palestinian researchers and extend thanks to all brothers in Pakistan and the government for supporting Palestine. Thanks to COMSTECH for establishing COMSTECH Consortium of Excellence to offer fellowships and scholarships for scientific research and development. The minister encourages this programme which creates research opportunities for students. We hope this programme will help in increasing the number of researchers. He extended thanks to the ministry of foreign affairs and ministry of science and technology Pakistan and COMSTECH.
H.E. Mr. Ahmed Jawad A.A. Rabei, Ambassador of Palestine in Pakistan thanked the President of Pakistan, the Coordinator General COMSTECH and the Minister of Science and Technology for taking this initiative of scholarships and fellowships for the people of Palestine. He said the people of Palestine and the government extend heart-felt thanks to the people and government of Pakistan. He said that we are grateful to Pakistan for unwavering support on all areas and fronts. The Ambassador also informed the participants of the session from Palestine about the efforts made to launch this programme and encouraged the Palestinian researchers to actively participate in the programme.
Mr. Kamran Akhtar, Director General (ACDIS & Science Diplomacy), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said we always supported the cause of the state of Palestine and we have been steadfast in our support. This programme is the one of the practical manifestation of our support to build the capacity and make them partner in the field of higher education. We are grateful to COMSTECH for making this possible as well as the higher education institutes in Pakistan which have agreed to join this programme. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will continue to coordinate with COMSTECH in assessing the programme progress and finding further avenues of building up relations with the government and people of Palestine. This continues to be the one of the priorities of ministry of foreign affairs.
Mr. Murtaza Noor, Advisor to Coordinator General COMSTECH, said that this is a large scholarship programme which have been launched by the Pakistani universities for Palestinian people. This programme offers 500 scholarships. This would be good opportunities for the students of Palestine.
