Palestinian Prime Minister Fayyad: PA is going ahead with security reforms

Sunday May 11, 2008 20:23

by Rami Almeghari - IMEMC & Agencies

Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, confirmed on Sunday that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is going ahead with a comprehensive security plan across the entire West Bank territories.

Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad

" the PA is determined to reform the security conditions in the West Bank, in light of latest success of security arrangements in the cities of Nablus and Jenin".

During a field visit to Nablus on Sunday, Fayyad said that there has been some sort of optimism towards wrestling full security control over the West Bank areas, in away that guarantees a better security situation.

Fayyad reiterated the PA's plan to rehabilitate and train the various security services for the best of improved security conditions for the entire population over there.

On another note, the Palestinian premier declared that his cabinet had endorsed some 200 micro-projects, half of them have been already executed in different parts of the West Bank.

The Fayyad's security plans for the West Bank come on the heels of Palestinian-Israeli U.S-backed peace negotiations, which would have started with the implementation by both sides of the 2003 U.S-brokered road map peace blueprint.

The road map's first phase states that the Palestinian Authiority dismantles armed Palestinian factions and rein in arms deployment in Palestinian areas, while Israel halts settlement activities on Palestinian lands and pull back forces to lines prior September 2000.

Recently, the Palestinian side has increasingly complained to Washington of the Israel side's failure to implement Israel's part of the road map's obligations.

Fayyad formed his government in the summer of 2007, after the Islamist Hamas party-which shuns peace talks with Israel until Israel halts actions against the Palestinian territories- had seized control over Gaza amidst factional fighting with Fayyad's secular Fatah party.