Rice: aid will continue to the Palestinians
Palestine-Saudi Arabia-USA, Politics, 2/23/2006

In her press conference with the Saudi peer prince Saudi al-Faisal in Riyadh on Wednesday, the US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, who will be meeting today in Abu Dhabi with the GCC secretary general, renewed her rejection to what she called a terrorist organization, but she vowed to send humanitarian aid as long as the channels do not go through a government led by Hamas.

Rice said "we are sympathizing people and we want the Palestinian people to get food and medicine and the Palestinian children not to live in dirty conditions."

The Saudi foreign minister said making a distinction between humanitarian and non humanitarian needs is not that clear, adding that the Palestinian people are in need of the two and this makes the Saudi authorities continue aiding to the Palestinians.

Al-Faisal added "we do not want to link the international aids for the Palestinian people to other considerations, rather than their urgent humanitarian need." He indicated that the kingdom stressed full commitment to avoid jumping to immature assessment.

Before Saudi Arabia, Rice heard a similar statement which spoke of the need to give Hamas enough time to assess the current situation and to define policies concerning demands announced by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his speech before the Palestinian legislative council and the address of assigning the government, according to the spokesman for the Egyptian Presidency Suleiman Awad.

The UN delegate to the Middle East, Alfaro De Soto, appealed, following talks with the Palestinian president in Gaza, " all those who can give help to the Palestinian authority, so that it would not face a financial crisis in the next phase."

Worth noting that the Palestinian authority has had a need of $ 1.9 billion annually.

Previous Stories:
  Rice: aid to Palestinians, but not to Hamas   (2/21/2006)
  Palestinian authority returns $50 million to Washington   (2/18/2006)
  US denies working to undermine Palestinian government   (2/15/2006)
  Riyadh considers concern over Hamas win unjustified   (1/28/2006)
  Saudi Arabia calls Israel to withdraw from West Bank   (8/16/2005)

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