UN chief Ban Ki-on Monday appealed to donors to maintain support for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, calling for a "just and durable" solution to their fate.
"I encourage donors to maintain the favourable funding trends of the last 18 months, and thus ensure that the organisational development process is brought to fruition in due course," Ban said in a letter read out at the opening of a conference of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Amman.
"We further acknowledge that a just and durable solution to the refugee issue should be an integral part of the peaceful resolution" to the Arab-Israeli conflict, he said in the letter, cited by AFP. The two-day conference is to discuss the situation facing some 4.3 million refugees and their descendants in the care of the agency in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
"Host countries are still worried about the financial situation and commitments towards the Palestinian refugees, particularly as its budget this year does not cover needed requirements," Jordanian official Wajih Azayzeh said on behalf of Foreign Minister Abdul Ilah Khatib.
He urged donor countries to assist UNRWA and help "ease the suffering of the Palestinian refugees."
