Differences over Aid to Palestinians Resolved: Palestinian Official

A senior Palestinian official said Sunday that differences among Arab countries over ways to provide financial aid to the Palestinians have been resolved.

Nabil Shaath, Palestinian Minister of International Cooperation, told reporters that after serious consultations, the foreign ministers of the 22-member Arab League had reached consensus over how to channel the donations to the Palestinians.

Shaath is here to attend the Arab foreign ministerial preparatory meeting for the Arab summit, which is scheduled for March 27-28

According to him, 40 million US dollars will be provided to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in a period of six months.

The Arab countries set up two funds totaling 1 billion dollars for the Palestinians at the Cairo emergency Arab summit last October in a bid to maintain the Arab character of Jerusalem and to support the families of those died in violent clashes with Israeli troops.

But some of the Arab donors refused to provide the money to the PNA directly, arguing that there might be lack of transparency in the use of the funds.

This controversy, along with the Iraq issue, prevented the Arab foreign ministers from continue their second session Saturday afternoon. The ministers also differed over the Iraqi request for the Arab countries to unilaterally break the U.N. sanctions against it by allowing it to send donations up to 1 billion euros (938 million dollars) to the Palestinian self-ruled areas.

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait staunchly opposed to the request, saying Iraq must first comply with the relevant U.N. resolutions.

The ministers instead engaged in multilateral or bilateral consultations on the two issues Saturday afternoon, just hours after the opening ceremony. Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdel Ilah al-Khatib shuttled among the ministers striving to reach a compromise.

It is learned that the ministers are now ready to have their session resumed Sunday afternoon after resolving their problems.








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