‘As long as I’m president, Honduras will stand behind Israel’

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández declared Wednesday while on a visit to Jerusalem that relations between his Central American country and Israel have never been closer. “As long as I am president, Honduras will stand behind Israel,”Hernández said in a speech before the Israel Council on Foreign Relations (ICFR) and the World Jewish Congress under whose auspices it operates, at the King David Hotel.
Hernández met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in the day to discuss ways in which the two countries could assist each other. The Honduran president told guests of the ICFR that “after this visit, relations, which have been solid for 65 years, would be even stronger.”
The Honduran leader, who studied in Israel in 1992 in a Mashav program (an Israeli development and cooperation program) was accompanied on his visit this week by a high-level delegation that included Secretary of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Arturo Corrales Álvarez, Secretary of Infrastructure and Public Services Robert Antonio Ordoñez, Secretary of Agricultural Affairs Jacobo Paz Bodden and Secretary of National Defense Samuel Reyes. Hernández explained that the delegation was especially interested in learning from Israel’s experience in the realms of security and irrigation.

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President Hernandez thanked President Rivlin for his warm welcome, and reaffirmed his country’s support for Israel.
“It is an honor for me and my wife, and all the delegation to visit Israel. We bring a message from the people of Honduras to the people of Israel; we have supported you and will continue to support you, and your choices, as a state and as a people.”
He stressed that Israel’s wealth of experience in the field of water conservation and agriculture was of great importance, and his hopes for his own country to gain such expertise from the Jewish state.
“Our country, in Central America, in the past years has been especially impacted by climate change. We are here in order to benefit from your experience, and we hope to receive your support on this issue.
“The issue of water management in agriculture is among our highest priorities for our increasing cooperation, and I call on both the public and private sectors to invest in the agricultural areas across Honduras. We have the water, and we hope to learn from you how to manage it for effective irrigation.”

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