(Communicated by Foreign Minister's Bureau)
Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni left this morning (16 December 2007) for Paris, where she will attend the international donors conference scheduled to convene on Monday. She will also address the delegates at the conference.
Minister Livni plans to meet on the sidelines with a number of her counterparts from other countries and discuss issues currently on the Middle East agenda. Immediately after the meeting, Livni will return to Israel.
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Following are excerpts from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's remarks at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting today (Sunday), 16 December 2007:
(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)
"The conference of donor countries will convene tomorrow in Paris and will deal in strengthening the Palestinian Authority (PA) as part of the international effort to establish its economic, civil, institutional and administrative base in order to allow it to function as a developing entity ahead of statehood, that is capable of properly running its own affairs. Of course, the main issue from the State of Israel's point-of-view in the end is the PA's ability to properly deal with the security issue, defeat the terrorist organizations and assure that there will be no terrorism directed at Israel.
Israel will participate in this meeting. Naturally, the Israeli delegation will be led by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who will present the Israeli position and participate in the discussions. We certainly support the strengthening of the PA and the appropriate international mobilization in order to bring about an improvement of the Palestinian residents' daily lives, especially by upgrading their own economic infrastructure that will not be dependent on the State of Israel once the appropriate administrative institutions are established. As I have said, this includes - first and foremost - proper law-enforcement organizations and systematic action against the terrorist organizations.
We are cooperating with the International Quartet Envoy, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. We will continue to cooperate with him and will help him in strengthening projects on the agenda."