Malaysia Wants UN Peacekeepers in Palestine

Malaysia wants the international community, through the United Nations, to initiate action to station peacekeeping troops in Palestine, reported the Malaysian news agency BERNAMA Friday.

Malaysian Foreign minister Syed Hamid Albar said a resolution should be passed as soon as possible for UN peacekeepers to be placed in the Israeli occupied territories.

"Something needs to be done to stop the barbaric acts by the Israelis...many children and women have died because of them," he said after presenting a US$50,000 humanitarian aid to the republic of Guinea.

The aid, for refugees and displaced persons in the country, was presented to the Guinean ambassador to Malaysia Mamadou Toure here Thursday.

Syed Hamid said sending in UN peacekeeping troops would be one way for the international community to show its displeasure over the acts committed by Israel against the Palestinians.

Renewed Israeli aggression against the Palestinians yesterday left four Palestinians dead.

Syed Hamid said the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) will meet in Doha, Qatar, on May 26 to condemn Israel for its ruthless acts and to pressure the UN to place peacekeepers in the occupied territories.

Syed Hamid will represent Malaysia at the Doha meeting.

On the aid to Guinea, he said it was part of Malaysia's humanitarian relief efforts.

Since September 2000, several villages and towns in the southwest of Guinea have been the target of attacks by rebel forces based in neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The cross border attacks have claimed more than 700 lives, displacing some 300,000 Guineans and the influx of 420,000 refugees from Sierra Leone and Liberia.