Photostream : Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad meets with U.S. Senator John Kerry

US Senator John Kerry (C) waves as his arrives at the Palestinian Authority headquarters for a meeting with prime minister Salam Fayyad on March 22, 2011 in the West Bank city of Ramallah. (Photo by ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/Getty Images)

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad (R) shakes hands with U.S. Senator John Kerry during their meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah March 22, 2011. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass, left, meets with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Tuesday, March 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Photostream : Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad meets Norway's Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad (R) meets with Norways Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere (L) on January 12, 2011 Ramallah, West Bank. (Photo by Fadi Arouri-Pool/Getty Images)

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad (R) shakes hands with Norways Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere in the West Bank city of Ramallah January 12, 2011. REUTERS/Fadi Arouri/Pool

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad (R) and Norways Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere attend a news conference after their meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah January 12, 2011. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

Palestinian aid dependence to dip in 2011 : Salam Fayyad

FILE : Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad

Please also visit : KATAKAMI.COM

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Jan 12 (KATAKAMI / Reuters) – The Palestinian Authority’s dependence on foreign aid will drop to less than $1 billion in 2011, from $1.2 billion in 2010, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Wednesday. Fayyad, a former World Bank economist, has reduced the territory’s annual dependence on international aid from around $2 billion since he took office in 2007. He wants to do away with foreign aid completely by 2013.

Financial support from the United States, the European Union and Arab states allows the Palestinian Authority to pay the salaries of around 150,000 bureaucrats, teachers and members of the Palestinian security forces.

“We expect that a deficit in this range (of less than $1 billion) … will be within the framework of what it is possible for the donors to finance,” he said.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, head of an international committee that oversees aid to the PA, praised Fayyad for lowering the foreign aid requirement. He was speaking alongside Fayyad at a news conference in Ramallah.

“I am looking forward to the day when I will stop any aid to the Palestinian Authority because I know that if this Palestinian economy will be run like any other economy it will do without aid,” he said.

The Palestinian Authority faced a financial crisis last year due to late payment of funds expected from its Arab backers. The crisis was eventually eased thanks to payments from states including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. (*)

Photostream : Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad meets EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton

Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad (R) shows EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton an area disputed with Israel on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Ramallah on January 6, 2011. (Photo by ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/Getty Images)

European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton, left, and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, right, gesture towards Ofer prison, an Israeli detention facility for Palestinians, as they tour the West Bank city of Ramallah, Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011. Ashton is on an official visit to the region. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad (R) shows EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton an area disputed with Israel on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Ramallah on January 6, 2011. (Photo by ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/Getty Images)

Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad (R) shows EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton an area disputed with Israel on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Ramallah on January 6, 2011. (Photo by ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/Getty Images)

Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad : Palestinians seek more than a ‘Facebook state’

Palestinian Prime Minister said Palestinians expect wider recognition of their statehood in 2011. -- PHOTO: AP

Please also visit : KATAKAMI.COM


RAMALLAH, December 30, 2010 (KATAKAMI / THE STRAITS TIMES) --- PALESTINIANS expect wider recognition of their statehood in the coming year and it will mean more than the mere 'Facebook state' predicted by an Israeli official, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Wednesday.

Mr Fayyad said recognition by many countries would 'enshrine' the Palestinians' right to a state in all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel captured along with East Jerusalem in a 1967 war.

Seventeen years of peace efforts had failed to deliver this promise, he told reporters. The current Israeli coalition's stated commitment to a two-state solution could not be relied on 'given the erosion that has taken place', he said.

Jewish settlement of the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem has doubled since the interim Oslo accords of 1993.

Direct peace talks revived by Washington in September after a year's suspension collapsed within weeks. A US drive to keep the process alive via third-party talks is in limbo.

The Palestinians reject further negotiation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu until Jewish settlement of West Bank land is frozen and Mr Netanyahu states clearly what size and shape of state he envisages agreeing to eventually. 'It is very important for that to be defined,' Mr Fayyad said.   (*)



Source : THE STRAITS TIMES & REUTERS

Photostream : British Foreign Secretary William Hague meets Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad

Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad (R) shakes hands with British Foreign Secretary William Hague during a meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah on November 3, 2010. (Photo by ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/Getty Images)

Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad (R) meets with British Foreign Secretary William Hague in the West Bank city of Ramallah on November 3, 2010. (Photo by ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/Getty Images)

Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad (C) looks on as British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Palestinian Education Minister Lamis al-Almi exchange cooperation agreements in the West Bank city of Ramallah on November 3, 2010. (Photo by ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/Getty Images)

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad : PA will declare independent state in August 2011

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad

October 29, 2010 (KATAKAMI / JPOST) --- Palestinian Authority PM tells Italian newspaper: "The youngest olive trees have deeper roots than the largest Israeli settlement."

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the PA will declare an independent Palestinian state in 2011, while picking olives with a reporter from Italian daily Corriere Della Sera, according to an interview published on Thursday.

"The deadline is next summer, when the Israeli occupation of the West Bank must end," Fayyad said. "In 2011, we will celebrate 66 years of the United Nations and the United Nations will celebrate the birth of our nation."
Fayyad added that the Palestinians "need to build national institutions in the West Bank and prepare for an independent Palestinian state."

"The people of Gaza must be involved in our national project," Fayyad explained. "There are gaps between us, it's true, but the real gap is the wall that closes off the Strip. Next week, I will try to enter Gaza," he added.

Fayyad took the Corriere Della Sera reporter to pick olives, something that he says he does every day. He also lamented the settlers' "poisoning" of the trees, saying olive trees are "the symbol of our right to be on this earth."

"In Palestine we have 15 million" olive trees, Fayyad said. "We can not accept that even one is destroyed. The youngest of these trees have deeper roots than the largest Israeli settlement."

Fayyad also expressed anger at the end of the settlement building moratorium.

"Look at those houses up there in Shiloh," he said, "they are illegal not because I say so, but in international law. Israel considers UN resolutions as mere recommendations."

The Palestinian prime minister said that he will give Israel "one more year of grace...but these colonies can no longer be there. They are illegal everywhere; here and Jerusalem."

"If it is true that Israel is interested in peace, it must block" the settlers, Fayyad said.

On Tuesday, Fayyad went olive-picking with UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry. Serry expressed his support for an declaration of Palestinian statehood by August 2011.