New UK ambassador to Israel appointed
THE UK has announced a new ambassador to Israel, to take up the position in June.
The Foreign Office revealed on Thursday that Neil Wigan, who has previously served as British ambassador to Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, will succeed David Quarrey, the current ambassador, in five months’ time.
Mr Wigan was also chief of the political section at the British embassy in Tel Aviv from 2002 to 2006, and was head of the Foreign Office’s Arab, Israel and North Africa group from 2006 to 2008.
In a tweet in Hebrew, Mr Wigan said he was “happy to be returning to Israel as ambassador.
“The first role I held abroad was in Israel and I always hoped for a chance to serve there again.”
The Foreign Office said that Mr Quarrey, who has served as ambassador to Israel from 2015, would be “transferring to another diplomatic service appointment”.
Mark Regev, Israel’s ambassador to the UK, wished Mr Wigan “a huge Mazal Tov”.
He said he was “looking forward to working with him”.
Mr Regev added that Mr Quarrey was leaving behind an “impressive record including a trade partnership that reached £8.6bn last year”.
The Board of Deputies also congratulated Mr Wigan on his appointment and said it “look[ed] forward to working” with him.
The organisation thanked Mr Quarrey “for all his hard work to strengthen UK-Israel relations”.
British exports to Israel surged by 75 per cent between January and June 2018, up from $1.97 billion in the first half of 2017.
Total bilateral trade grew in the first half of 2018 to $4.33 billion [£3.29 billion], an increase of eight per cent on the same period in 2017.
Despite the good economic news, Mr Quarrey has not always expressed confidence in Israel’s overall direction of travel.
In 2016, he said peace in the Middle East was unlikely to happen for “decades, even centuries”.