By Xinhua
London : British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday that his country would provide 500 million U.S. dollars in aid to help boost development in Palestine as part of a drive for a 2008 peace deal.
Speaking at a joint press conference with visiting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after talks in Downing Street No. 10, Brown said, “2008 is a year of great opportunity — the creation of a viable state of Palestine alongside a secure state of Israel.”
“We stand ready to do everything else that is necessary to promote investment in Palestinian areas to make it possible for unemployment to fall, for poverty to be reduced and for jobs to be created.”
“We will join with our European colleagues in giving policing and security support,” he said, adding “We are determined to work with President Abbas and Olmert (Israeli Prime Minister) to overcome all obstacles to the achievement in 2008 of a successful solution of these issues.”
At the news conference, Abbas said, “This is a golden opportunity and we have to exploit it to the maximum.”
“We don’t say these are easy problems, there are lots of complexities but it’s our duty that we have to overcome these complexities,” he said.
Brown also hailed the seven billion U.S. dollars pledged to Palestine at the Paris donors conference that concluded Monday, and a further investors conference will be held in Bethlehem next year.
“The UK will sponsor an investors’ conference in Bethlehem in March or April 2008,” Brown said.
“The United States of America and Britain together will host the conference … It’s an important signal about the need for investment to create jobs for prosperity and opportunity in the Palestinian areas,” he added.
Brown said he hoped that settlement activity by Israel in Palestinian territories would end and that attacks on Israel, mostly through rockets launched from the Gaza strip, would also cease.
Under these conditions progress could be made on securing economic development for Palestine and securing a peace deal in 2008 as envisaged in last month’s Annapolis agreement, he added.
On Monday, the one-day international donors’ conference on Palestine was held in Paris, and the donors promised to provide a total of 7.4 billion U.S. dollars to the Palestinian state, exceeding the 5.6 billion dollars it had sought to implement the three-year economic plan from 2008 to 2010.
The Paris conference, which brought together nearly 90 delegations, falls within the framework of the recent summit held in Annapolis in the United States, during which the Israelis and Palestinians agreed to work together with a view to building a viable Palestinian state by the end of 2008.