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PALESTINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER COMING TO LONDON

Britain's Foreign Office has invited Palestinian foreign minister Ziad Abu Amr to meet British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett in London, officials on both sides said Thursday.
"The precise arrangements and timing require discussion between the two foreign ministries," a spokesman for the British Consulate General in Beit-ul-Moqaddas told AFP by telephone.

"He will meet the Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett and is likely to speak at a public event at a policy centre," the spokesman added.
Abu Amr is an independent member of a Palestinian national unity government formed two months ago in which Hamas -- blacklisted as a terrorist organization in the West -- is the senior coalition partner.

The new government was created with the aims of ending a crippling Western boycott on direct aid slapped on Hamas's first cabinet after the group won a 2006 election and of drawing a line under deadly Palestinian fighting.

The Palestinian foreign ministry in Gaza City confirmed that Beckett had extended an invitation for Abu Amr to visit Britain.
"Contacts are currently ongoing to specify the date of the visit and its program," the ministry announced in a statement from Gaza City.
Last month, Abu Amr met French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin in Paris for talks on resuming aid to the Palestinian government.

A visit to Rome by Palestinian information minister Mustafa Barghuti has marked another foray into Europe by representatives of the unity government although Britain has been traditionally seen as more hardline.

News of the London invitation comes with BBC journalist Alan Johnston poised to mark two months in captivity in Gaza amid concern for his wellbeing after the purported kidnappers demanded Britain release Muslim detainees.

The 44-year-old seasoned journalist, forced out of his car at gunpoint on March while driving home from work, is the longest-held Westerner in the increasingly dangerous and impoverished Gaza Strip.

Britain's consul general in Beit-ul-Moqaddas Richard Makepeace has twice met Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya, a member of Hamas, to discuss efforts to free Johnston.

The European Union was the biggest aid donor to the Palestinian government until Hamas came to power in March 2006.

The main sponsors of the stalled peace process, the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States, demand the Palestinian government recognize Israel, renounce violence and abide by past peace agreements.

Israel has in the past prevented members of the Hamas-led government from leaving the occupied West Bank to travel abroad, but Abu Amr lives in the Gaza Strip which has a border with Egypt.

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