This came in a speech delivered by the head of the Saudi delegation to the Human Rights Commission Dr. Bandar bin Mohammed Al-Aiban, during a session to adopt the additional report presented by the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, within the 40th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Dr. Al-Aiban stressed that the Kingdom's efforts in the field of protecting and promoting human rights and raising national capacities in this regard are ongoing, as the efforts to spread the culture of human rights and education are continuing, where the Kingdom believes that the development of awareness of human rights at the official and social levels is one of the fundamental pillars of the protection and promotion of human rights. He said, "The Kingdom considers the universal periodic review mechanism with great interest, evidenced by its active participation in the three review rounds, its support for most of the recommendations made during those rounds, the study at the national level and the implementation of most of them, as well as making a number of recommendations to many States under this mechanism". Al-Aiban also said that the Kingdom was briefed on 258 recommendations at the 31st session of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review held in November 2018, as the recommendations were studied by a committee composed of concerned governmental bodies, the Human Rights Council, and a number of Civil society institutions, where the study found that 182 recommendations were fully endorsed and 31 were partially endorsed, where a number of recommendations invited the Kingdom to join the Two International Covenants on Human Rights, in addition to a number of other conventions, and that the joining to the Covenants is of interest to the Kingdom. --More 17:13 LOCAL TIME 14:13 GMT 0017 www.spa.gov.sa/w1064692