UNITED NATIONS: Key donors to the Palestinian Authority on Sunday added to demands for a return to direct Palestinian-Israeli talks calling the political deadlock a threat to the economy of the wouldbe state.
Concerns were raised by Norway's Foreign Minister Jonas Gare Store who chaired a key meeting of the main Palestinian donors' committee which Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad attended with Israel's deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon.
Direct negotiations between the two sides have been frozen for the past year and the Palestinians are now in conflict with the Israel and the United States over their plan to seek full UN membership.
“There is a message from this meeting that there is an urgent need, as we donors see it, that political negotiations resume so that we can go toward this vision of Israel and Palestine living together side by side,” Store told reporters.
The World Bank, International Monetary Fund and UN agencies have all said the Palestinian Authority is ready to run its own state. Store said the authority's efforts, largely led by Fayyad, to build institutions and to revive the Palestinian economy stand out “as a remarkable international success story”.
“It is now crucial to safeguard these achievements and the progress made thus far,” he added, saying that donors were worried that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories is “hampering” Palestinian economic prospects.
Store said there was not yet any sign that donors were linking funds to the Palestinian bid for UN recognition. But donor funds have fallen in recent months. An IMF report said that dollar 700 million of aid had been expected so far this year but only dollar 400 million has been released.
It said the authority was in arrears paying wages for the first time since 2007.
Since the freezing of direct Israeli-Palestinians talks, the donors' committee is the only international forum where the two sides sit down together.
The Israeli minister said that Israeli economic aid could be affected if the Palestinians go ahead with their bid for full UN membership.
“Future assistance and cooperation could be severely and irreparably compromised if the Palestinian leadership continues on its path of essentially acting in contravention of all signed agreements which also regulate existing economic relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority,” Ayalon told the conference.
Heading into the meeting, Ayalon reaffirmed Israel's claim that Palestinian membership at the United Nations would breach Israeli-Palestinian accords and “could shut the door to a peace process in the future” and threaten stability in the Middle East.
“Israel will be compelled to act according to our own interest, to first and foremost make sure that stability and security remains and that security does not deteriorate. But I think we have not crossed the point of no return,” he added.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has said he will ask on Friday for the UN Security Council to meet to back full UN membership for the Palestinians.
The United States, a key Israeli ally, has vowed to veto such a move.
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