{"id":128626,"date":"2026-04-04T18:24:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T18:24:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ecowas.int\/?p=128626"},"modified":"2026-04-05T22:07:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T22:07:32","slug":"strengthening-bilateral-cooperation-and-further-deepening-partnerships-between-the-kingdom-of-saudi-arabia-and-ecowas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecowas.int\/?p=128626","title":{"rendered":"STRENGTHENING BILATERAL COOPERATION AND FURTHER DEEPENING PARTNERSHIPS BETWEEN THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA AND ECOWAS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"font-family: 'Source Sans Pro',sans-serif;\">The newly appointed Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Nigeria, Yousef Mohammed Albalawi, has pledged to consolidate the strong ties of friendship and cooperation between his country and the West African region.\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"font-family: 'Source Sans Pro',sans-serif;\">He reaffirmed this during a courtesy visit to the President of the Commission of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Dr. Omar Alieu Touray, on Thursday, 2 April 2026, in Abuja, Nigeria.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"font-family: 'Source Sans Pro',sans-serif;\">The Saudi diplomat emphasized the importance of facilitating economic and diplomatic exchanges between Saudi Arabia and West Africa. He also took the opportunity to inform his host of plans to open around ten embassies of the Kingdom in ECOWAS Member States within the next five years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"font-family: 'Source Sans Pro',sans-serif;\">Ambassador Yousef Mohammed Albalawi further reiterated his country\u2019s willingness to strengthen its support for ECOWAS efforts in addressing community challenges and promoting peace, security and stability in West Africa. \u201cThere is no development without peace, security and stability,\u201d he stated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"font-family: 'Source Sans Pro',sans-serif;\">This is also the guiding principle of the President of the ECOWAS Commission, for whom no economic development or infrastructure achievement is possible without peace and security, not only in West Africa but also globally.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"font-family: 'Source Sans Pro',sans-serif;\">Dr. Omar Alieu Touray congratulated Yousef Mohammed Albalawi on his appointment as Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Nigeria and expressed his readiness to soon receive his letters of credence accrediting him also to ECOWAS.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"font-family: 'Source Sans Pro',sans-serif;\">He assured him of his support in the successful fulfilment of his mission to the regional organisation and took the opportunity to highlight the excellence of the longstanding relations of friendship and cooperation between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and ECOWAS.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"font-family: 'Source Sans Pro',sans-serif;\">\u201cThe Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a privileged partner and its cooperation with ECOWAS has a solid foundation. This cooperation will continue and be further strengthened,\u201d Dr. Omar Alieu Touray stated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"font-family: 'Source Sans Pro',sans-serif;\">He reaffirmed ECOWAS\u2019 commitment to strengthening relations with Saudi Arabia, underlining the long-standing partnership between the two parties.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"font-family: 'Source Sans Pro',sans-serif;\">The meeting also provided an opportunity for Dr. Omar Alieu Touray to inform the Saudi diplomat of one of the major challenges currently facing ECOWAS, namely misinformation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"font-family: 'Source Sans Pro',sans-serif;\">It should be noted that Dr. Omar Alieu Touray was accompanied at the meeting by his Chief of Staff, Abdou Kolley; his Communication Adviser, Abdoulie Gassama; as well as J\u00e9r\u00f4me Boa and Liberor Doscof Aho, respectively Director of External Relations and Communication Officer of the ECOWAS Commission.<\/span><b><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The newly appointed Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Nigeria, Yousef Mohammed Albalawi, has pledged to consolidate the strong ties of friendship and cooperation between his country and the West African region.\u00a0 He reaffirmed this during a courtesy visit to the President of the Commission of the Economic Community of West African [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecowas.int\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecowas.int\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecowas.int\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecowas.int\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecowas.int\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=128626"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecowas.int\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128649,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecowas.int\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128626\/revisions\/128649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecowas.int\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecowas.int\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=128626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecowas.int\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=128626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}