Japan to resume direct aid to Palestinian Authority

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Aug 15 (Reuters) Japan's foreign minister announced today a resumption of direct aid to the Palestinian Authority and discussed a Japanese-backed plan to boost Israeli-Palestinian economic cooperation.

Taro Aso pledged million in aid to the Western-backed administration which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas formed in the occupied West Bank after Hamas seized the Gaza Strip in June.

Aso said Japan would also provide 9 million dollars in humanitarian support for Palestinians, including those in Hamas-held Gaza.

''In order to support President Abbas in a visible way, Japan has decided to resume direct financial aid to the Palestinian Authority,'' Aso told a news conference with Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Aso said he believed Abbas and his prime minister, Salam Fayyad, and other ''experienced politicians'' would find a way to bring Gaza and the West Bank together ''through various negotiations and discussions''. Aso did not spell out how that would be accomplished.

''I assure you that the split is temporary and it must be resolved,'' Abbas said in response.

Aso later took part in a ministerial meeting in the West Bank city of Jericho with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdelelah al-Khatib and several senior Palestinian officials.

The participants later announced an initiative to build a joint agroindustrial park in the Jordan Valley, likely to be part-funded by Japan. Aso said he hoped such joint projects would support the peace process, though Israel and the Palestinians sounded circumspect given the Gazan crisis.

''This is not a substitute for a meaningful peace process that will lead to a two-state solution,'' Saeb Erekat, a top aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, told reporters.

''Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians have every right to be doubtful, have every right to be cynics, have every right to ask: What are we doing here while people are dying out there?'' Japan joined an international aid embargo on the Palestinian Authority after Hamas, an Islamist group that refuses to recognise the Jewish state, won parliamentary elections in 2006.

Abbas dismissed the Hamas-led government in June after Gaza's takeover. The financial taps have gradually reopened to Abbas's new government led by Fayyad.

''The situation on the ground is not easy,'' Livni said. ''(But) hope comes because there is a (Palestinian) government that meets the requirements of the international community.'' Reuters PD DB2129