The quartet comprising the US, Russia, the EU and the UN converged in Paris under the leadership of Tony Blair to decide the road map of Palestinian Development. Prior to this 90 nation summit; World Bank had urged Israel to remove blockades to enable free movement of goods and people to improve economic activity in the region. Blair expectation of $5.6 billion cash target was easily met by a major chunk coming from Arab world alone. The nations in the summit are pinning hopes on a speedy peace solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through this action.
The “Economic Annapolis” as it is billed to be a follow up to the November summit which was held in Maryland, USA will definitely bring about classy resolution because the world started realizing that all the energy is getting drained out to resolve conflicts in such summits. The fund raising received an overwhelming response through the promises of $640m from EU, US $550m, UK 500m and the major portion coming from UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations.
The economic aid will serve as a forerunner to the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue which will resume from 23rd December 2007 for their second round of talks, since reviving the Middle East peace process last month. If the talks could resolve issues at least related to blockades the pledged amount would be sufficient than the actual demand of $7.1 billion. However, going by the promises made by the nations the amount would be much higher than the actual demand. After meeting Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayaad and Israel’s defence minister Ehud Barak, Tony Blair is confident that the progress in negotiations is in the right direction. He further adds that the peace process will get its final shape, as expected before 2008 end.