By IRNA
London : Britain and the United States plan to set up an international conference in 2008 to attract further investments into the Palestinian Territories, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced Tuesday.
The conference would take place in Bethlehem in March or April, Brown said at a London press conference with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas.
He insisted that 2008 offered great opportunities to create a Palestinian state following last month’s US-led Annapolis agreement, which effectively excluded the EU from the political process.
The British premier said he only hoped that illegal settlement activity by Israeli regime in Palestinian territories would end and that resistance attacks from Gaza 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 conference, he claimed.
The Bethlehem conference is aimed to follow on from the international donor conference in Paris and Brown said Britain would provide Dlrs 500 million in aid to help boost development in Palestine.
Abbas, who flew in to London from the Paris conference, hailed the seven billion dollars pledged and talked of a “golden” and “historic” opportunity for peace in the Middle East.