Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas arrived in Saudi Arabia on Sunday
to attend the Third Arab Economic, Social and Developmental Summit.
At
the summit, Arab leaders are expected to discuss economic and social issues in
their countries, including railway land linkage, increase of investment, trade
and aviation.
Abbas will seize the opportunity to renew his call on Arab
countries to provide the Palestinians with urgent financial aid, a PA official
in Ramallah said.
Arab League members have thus far failed to fulfill
their promise to give the PA $100 million each month in compensation for
Israel’s decision to confiscate Palestinians’ tax revenues to pay their debt to
the Israel Electric Corporation.
Last week, Saudi Arabia announced that
it would give the PA $100m. in emergency aid to help it pay salaries to more
than 100,000 Palestinian public employees.
Abbas is accompanied by PA
Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Foreign Minister Riad al- Malki and Finance
Minister Nabil Qassis.
The PA government has been unable to pay full
salaries to its employees for the past two months due to the severe financial
crisis it has been facing.
On the eve of Abbas’s visit to Saudi Arabia,
the Palestinian public employees’ union declared a general strike Wednesday to
protest against the failure of the PA government to pay full salaries.
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