Getting On with the Middle East

Mexico and the Arab Middle East have had a happy 2010, according to the former:

Over the course of this year Mexico strengthened in a significant way diplomatic relations with Arab nations, the foreign ministry stated.

In a summary of its activities completed in 2010 with regard to nations in that region, the department detailed that its work will be the base for the further enrichment of bilateral agendas, the identification of areas of cooperation, and fostering inversion and commercial flows.

During this year, the prime minister of Kuwait, Sheikh Nasser Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al Sabah, and the president of Lebanon, Michel Sleiman; similarly, Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa traveled to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.

The foreign minister traveled to the headquarters of the Arab League, located in Cairo, Egypt in May, in search of new perspectives for cooperation in this international forum.

The foreign ministry emphasized that as a show of the excellent link with Arab nations, over the course of the present year Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates opened embassies in Mexico.

This may be more window dressing than a substantial embrace of the Arab world, and indeed it's hard to conceive of many significant areas of common interest between Mexico and the Arab world, but it also comes within a wider recent embrace of the Palestinian cause in Latin America.