President Enrique Peña Nieto notified the Senate that he will leave the country on Sept. 28 and return on Oct. 1 to attend the official ceremony for heads of state and heads of government to pay their respects to the recently deceased former president of Israel Shimon Peres.
In his message to the Senate, Peña Nieto said that Shimon Peres was a man of peace and an internationally recognized statesman. As president, Peres worked to promote dialogue and unity between the religious and the secular, between the left and right and between Jews and Arabs.
Peres always maintained a moderate political position and a conciliatory outlook on the Middle East conflict based on the creation of new states. He was also a promoter of Israeli connection to the Arab states and one of the main forces behind the Oslo Accords, which were an attempt to find a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
He received many international recognitions for his work to create peace, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, which he shared with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat.
Peña Nieto’s participation in the ceremony will represent a demonstration of solidarity with Israel and the international Jewish community as Peres is mourned.
Peres visited Mexico six times, including a state visit in November 2013. He died on Tuesday at 93 years of age.
