Reply #1: Brown pledges Palestinian aid, urges settlement freeze [View All]

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"Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday pledged new aid to the Palestinians and called for a freeze on Israeli settlement building to bolster the Middle East peace process.

"We have pledged 500 million dollars for economic development in Palestine over three years to 2011," Brown said after meeting Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

"I can announce today a further commitment of 60 million dollars," Brown said on his first visit to the region as Britain's premier, bringing total British aid in 2008 to 175 million dollars.

Brown called for a freeze on Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, echoing criticism by the United States, saying their expansion had "made peace harder to achieve."

Settlement expansion "erodes trust, it heightens Palestinian suffering, it makes the compromises Israel will need to make for peace more difficult," Brown said, adding that there must also be a halt to violence on both sides."

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