Alireza was invited to visit Ireland by Enterprise Minister Richard Bruton when he visited Riyadh on April 20, 2011.
O'Sullivan will visit the Kingdom on Oct. 16 to 18 as head of a 50-member trade delegation to promote Irish products.
The delegation will visit Jeddah and Riyadh and will have high-level meetings with Saudi officials. At present, bilateral trade volume touches SR2.6 billion.
“Talks between the Saudi and Irish officials will discuss bilateral ties, including the Arab Peace Initiative which we believe is still capable of providing a viable and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian problem,” Ireland's Ambassador to the Kingdom Niall Holohan told Arab News.
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah in Beirut presented the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002 when he was crown prince. Under this initiative, Israel would withdraw from the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which it occupied after the Six Day War in 1967.
Holohan also said that aside from support on the Palestinian issue, Ireland could contribute to the Kingdom's further economic development.
“We admire the development plans to make Saudi Arabia one of the most modern countries in the world,” he said, adding that the two countries have resources that are complementary to each other.
“The Kingdom has natural resources, such as oil and gas, and Ireland has the expertise and the experience which we gained from transforming a basically agricultural society in Ireland into a high-tech industrial economy. We have put great emphasis on education and training, and we could share with the Kingdom what we have learned in this regard,” he said.
Holohan added that last June Minister of Higher Education Khaled Al-Anqari made an official visit to Ireland and signed a memorandum of understanding with his Irish counterpart, Ruairi Quinn.
Under the agreement, Saudi students are assured of full access to education facilities in Ireland, including universities. There are currently more than 1,000 Saudi students in Ireland taking up courses such as medicine, engineering, science and technology and most of them are under the King Abdullah Scholarship Program.
Of this number, about 300 are sponsored by the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC) in the Kingdom.
“As far as education input in the other direction is concerned, there are also more than 100 Irish teachers of English at King Saud University and elsewhere in the Kingdom,” the envoy said.
