RIYADH: More efforts to establish an independent Palestinian state and a renewed move to generate global support for capacity-building for Palestinians will top the agenda of a high-profile ministerial conference which opens in Jakarta today.
Representatives from more than 100 Asian and African countries including Saudi Arabia are gathering for the conference which is being organized within the framework of the New Asian-African Strategic Partnership (NAASP).
“A six-member Saudi delegation led by Dr. Yusef Al-Sadoun, the deputy foreign minister for economic and cultural affairs, has left for Jakarta to attend the two-day conference,” said B. Wishnu Krisnamurthi, a spokesman of the Indonesian Embassy, here yesterday.
Krisnamurthi said that the summit “will be decisive in the process of re-building Palestine.”
“The participation of Saudi Arabia in the conference has added importance because Riyadh has been on the forefront of all capacity-building initiatives for Palestine,” he added.
Saudi Arabia is a member state of NAASP besides the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank, which has an observer status as a regional organization. The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the Arab League are also NAASP member organizations.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad are also expected to attend the conference, according to a statement issued by the NAASP.
The conference will also serve as a forum to address problems faced by Palestinian refugees, Peter Ford, a representative of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), has been quoted as saying in the statement.
“With current food and fuel price increases, operational costs have shot up this year’s budget exceeding $500 million,” said Ford. The UNRWA is the only organization dealing with some four million Palestinian refugees, of which 1.9 million are hosted by Jordan.
About the high hopes of the stakeholders, the statement said: “The host governments are expecting a lot from the conference, where representatives from more than 100 Asian and African countries will gather and pledge capacity-building projects for Palestine.”
“While the Annapolis conference was focused on political support and the Paris conference was aimed at mobilizing finance, the NAASP conference emphasizes the provision of essential capacity-building projects based on the respective countries’ expertise,” added the statement.
