Palestinian foreign minister urges resumption of economic aid

Jun 13, 2007, 11:07 GMT

Tokyo - Visiting Palestinian Foreign Minister Ziad Mahmoud Abu-Amr on Wednesday urged Japanese and Western leaders to end the economic and political siege of the Palestinian people in order to help resolve the ongoing intra-Palestinian clashes in the Gaza Strip.

'The only way to tackle the internal violence in Gaza is to remove the ... underlying factors that created this frictional situation' between the Hamas and Fatah factions forming the national unity government of the Palestinians, Abu-Amr was quoted as saying at a news conference in Tokyo.

The Palestinian territories are economically and politically isolated and the situation has escalated to an extremely grave level, the foreign minister said, adding that internal friction and violence would naturally increase in any society in such a state.

Abu-Amr, on the last day of his three-day visit to Japan, urged the international community to help resolve the disputes in the region through economic aid and demanded an urgent resumption of the peace process.

'We need to go back to peace negotiations immediately, we need to resume economic assistance to the Palestinian people, we need to engage the Palestinians constructively,' he said at the Japan National Press Club.

As a major donor to the Palestinian territories, Japan has held back fresh direct payments to the Palestinian Authority since the Hamas militant group formed a Cabinet in January last year.

Japan plans to provide direct aid to the Palestinian president's office since a national unity government was formed in March by Hamas and Fatah, Kyodo News Agency reported.

Although Tokyo is not directly involved in the Middle East peace negotiators including the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, it has expressed ambition to take part in the peace process.

In March, Japan led an initiative involving Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories to encourage economic cooperation and boost the Palestinian economy.