RAMALLAH, President Mahmoud Abbas today visited the temporary headquarters of WAFA news agency in al-Bireh city and inaugurated the new office building located near the presidential headquarters.
“I am very happy to be here in WAFA, which I attended its first inauguration in 1972,” said the President. “The media was and still is very important. It was at the heart of the attention of the leadership of the Palestinian revolution before its launch with an aim of communicating our message to the world through what was then primitive methods,” he said, adding that the late President Yasser Arafat paid great attention to the media.
“With the development of media, we now have a headquarters for WAFA agency,” he said, expressing hope and wishes that every Palestinian institution will have its own headquarters.
“All our headquarters are temporary,” added the President. “The time will come when these headquarters move permanently to Jerusalem, the capital of the independent Palestinian state.”
The President pointed out that out of 109 Palestinian embassies around the world, only four are rented and the rest are owned by the State of Palestine.
The General Supervisor of the Official Media and Chairman of WAFA’s the Board of Directors Ahmad Assaf welcomed the President when he arrived at WAFA’s temporary headquarters, saying the visit coincides with the 50th anniversary of the establishment of WAFA in exile.
“WAFA succeeded in maintaining its credibility despite all the obstacles faced by our people due to the practices of the (Israeli) occupation, and has become a major source for true and accurate news, which distinguishes it from other media institutions,” said Assaf, explaining that WAFA publishes news in four languages: Arabic, English, French, and Hebrew.
Before moving to the new 880 square-meter, six-floor headquarters, WAFA operated since 1996 out of rented buildings in Ramallah while its headquarters was in Gaza until 2007 when it moved to Ramallah following the Hamas coup.
Source: Palestine News & Info Agency