Ribal Al-Assad meets with Borys Tarasyuk and Andriy Shevchenko

IMAN Chairman, Ribal Al-Assad recently met with the former Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Borys Tarasyuk, and Member of Parliament Andriy Shevchenko.

Borys Tarasyuk served as deputy of Foreign Minister between 1992 and 1995. Between 1995 and 1998 he was Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands and the Ukraine representative in NATO.

He served as Foreign Minister for the first time from in 1998 until 2000. After Ukraine's Orange Revolution, he became Foreign Minister again in 2005 serving in the Cabinets of Yulia Tymoshenko, Yuriy Yekhanurov, and Viktor Yanukovych.

Andriy Shevchenko MP was first elected in 2006 and was subsequently elected onto the Ukrainian parliament’s Free Speech Committee; he became the youngest ever Committee chairman to serve in the Ukrainian Parliament.

After 2012 election Mr. Shevchenko was elected First Deputy Chairman of the Human Rights Committee.

Mr. Shevchenko is the author of the Ukrainian Law on Access to Public Information, which was adopted in 2011 and is credited with strengthening civil freedoms and the free flow of information in the country. He is also one of the authors of the Law on Non-Governmental Organisations.

Their discussions focused on the work of the IMAN Foundation - especially with regards to combating religious extremism and the importance of inter-cultural dialogue.