Rice says Arab states give insufficient aid to Palestinians
10 hours ago

LONDON (AFP) — Arab states are not giving enough money to the Palestinian cause, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday, and urged them to open up their purse strings.

"I think that states that have resources ought to be looking not for how little they can do but how much they can do," the top US diplomat said, a day before a series of meetings in the British capital on the stalled Middle East peace process and aid to the Palestinian territories.

She did not specify which countries could do more, but a senior State Department official, who asked not to be named, said she was referring to Kuwait, Qatar and Libya.

"It is extremely important that people pay their pledges," Rice said, speaking on the plane while en route to London.

"Countries that have resources and that have an interest in the establishment of a Palestinian state need to put those resources at use now in order to lay the groundwork for the establishment of that state."

At a meeting of donor countries in Paris in December, the international community pledged upwards of seven billion dollars (4.5 billion euros) in aid, including 1.5 billion dollars in budgetary support, to be mostly spent on civil servants' salaries.

According to the State Department, of the 717 million dollars that has so far actually been contributed to date, 500 million dollars have come from the European Union, Britain, Norway, France and the United States.

Contributions from Arab League countries total 215 million dollars, including 91.6 million dollars from the United Arab Emirates, 61.6 million dollars from Saudi Arabia, and 62 million dollars from Algeria, State Department figures show.

Rice will attend a meeting of foreign ministers and representatives of the Mideast Quartet -- the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union -- Friday morning, which will be followed by talks on aid to the Palestinian territories.

In the afternoon, she will meet her counterparts from Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China to discuss Iran.

Rice is also scheduled to discuss Kosovo with her European counterparts, and to hold bilateral talks with British Foreign Minister David Milliband and with Quartet envoy Tony Blair.

After the meetings in London, she is due to set off for Israel and the West Bank, her 15th visit there since US President George W. Bush announced his intention to relaunch the Middle East peace process in July 2006.

Bush, who hosted a conference that formally restarted Middle East peace negotiations in November last year after a seven-year freeze, is to visit Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt from May 13 to 18.


[عزيزي الزائر يتوجب عليك التسجيل للمشاهدة الرابط[اخي العزيز ،، يتوجب عليك اضافة رد لرؤية الرابط]]