Vice Prime Minister Viacheslav Kyrylenko took part in the “Ukraine-Israel Forum 2016. 25 years of Diplomatic Relations: From Common Heritage to a Shared Vision” which was devoted to discussion of cooperation between the two countries in education, tourism, health, agriculture sectors, and determining principal directions of future partnership. The Forum brought together Speaker of the Knesset of the State of Israel Yuli-Yoel Edelstein, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Israel to Ukraine Eliav Belotserkovsky, Government members, MPs of Ukraine and of the Knesset, representatives of business and international financial institutions of the two countries.

In his speech, Viacheslav Kyrylenko congratulated the participants of the Forum on behalf of the Government and personally Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman on the 25th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between Ukraine and Israel and noted that the official visit of Speaker of the Knesset of the State of Israel Yuli-Yoel Edelstein for the first time in 23 years testified vigorous development of cooperation between the States.

"We will do our utmost to strengthen friendship between Ukraine and Israel," promised Viacheslav Kyrylenko.

The Vice Prime Minister also stressed that the histories of our nations had had a lot of dramatic pages.

"The Jewish people suffered a terrible tragedy of the Holocaust. Ukrainian people suffered a horrible tragedy of the Holodomor. Both our nations are well aware of the value of life, independence and territorial integrity of their countries", highlighted Viacheslav Kyrylenko.

Remembering about the Babi Yar tragedy the Vice Prime Minister noted that this is a shared history and memory, and Ukraine had paid every effort to ensure high level events dedicated to the 75-anniversary of the Babi Yar tragedy marked in September of this year.