Tokyo - Visiting Palestinian Foreign Minister Ziad Mahmoud
Abu-Amr on Wednesday urged Japanese and Western leaders to end the
economic and political siege of the Palestinian people in order to
help resolve the ongoing intra-Palestinian clashes in the Gaza Strip.
'The only way to tackle the internal violence in Gaza is to remove
the ... underlying factors that created this frictional situation'
between the Hamas and Fatah factions forming the national unity
government of the Palestinians, Abu-Amr was quoted as saying at a
news conference in Tokyo.
The Palestinian territories are economically and politically
isolated and the situation has escalated to an extremely grave level,
the foreign minister said, adding that internal friction and violence
would naturally increase in any society in such a state.
Abu-Amr, on the last day of his three-day visit to Japan, urged
the international community to help resolve the disputes in the
region through economic aid and demanded an urgent resumption of the
peace process.
'We need to go back to peace negotiations immediately, we need to
resume economic assistance to the Palestinian people, we need to
engage the Palestinians constructively,' he said at the Japan
National Press Club.
As a major donor to the Palestinian territories, Japan has held
back fresh direct payments to the Palestinian Authority since the
Hamas militant group formed a Cabinet in January last year.
Japan plans to provide direct aid to the Palestinian president's
office since a national unity government was formed in March by Hamas
and Fatah, Kyodo News Agency reported.
Although Tokyo is not directly involved in the Middle East peace
negotiators including the United States, Russia, the European Union
and the United Nations, it has expressed ambition to take part in the
peace process.
In March, Japan led an initiative involving Israel, Jordan and the
Palestinian territories to encourage economic cooperation and boost
the Palestinian economy.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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