Foreign relations of Portugal holds claim to the disputed territory of Olivença on the Portugal-Spain border. Foreign relations of Portugal Foreign relations of Portugal are linked with its historical role as a major player in the Age of Discovery and the holder of the now defunct Portuguese Empire.Portugal is a European Union member country and a founding member of NATO. It is a committed proponent of European integration and transatlantic relations. Augusto Santos Silva is the current Minister of Foreign Affairs of Portugal. Historically, the focus of Portuguese diplomacy has been to preserve its independence, "vis-à-vis", the danger of annexation by Spain, and the
A land without a people for a people without a land a people without a land". John Lawson Stoddard, a popular speaker and author of travel books, published an 1897 travelogue in which he exhorts the Jews, "You are a people without a country; there is a country without a people. Be united. Fulfil the dreams of your old poets and patriarchs. Go back, go back to the land of Abraham". According to Adam Garfinkle what Keith, Shaftesbury, Blackstone, Stoddard and the other nineteenth century Christians who used this phrase were saying was that the Holy Land was not the seat of a nation in the way that Japan is the