MOSCOW, August 3 (RIA Novosti) – Russia will allocate $2 million to the UN agency in charge of providing aid to Palestinian refugees in 2013, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
“This decision derives from Russia’s understanding of the importance of the activities of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) which are aimed at lightening the burden of Palestinian refugees,” the ministry said in a statement published on its website.
The problems of Palestinian refugees have been aggravated as a result of “complicated transformation processes in the Middle East,” it said.
“We continue strongly proceeding from the assumption that the problem of refugees, as well as other issues of Israeli-Palestinian settlement, should become a subject of direct talks between the sides,” the statement said, adding that Russia as a member of the Quartet of international mediators of the Israeli-Palestinian issue will continue seeking the early resumption of the negotiations.
The talks between the Israelis and Palestinians have been stalled since September 2010, when Israel refused to extend its freeze on settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories. The Palestinians have refused to return to the negotiating table until Israel halts all settlement activity, while Israel insists the talks should resume without preconditions.
The issue of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, whose number is estimated at 5 million, and their right to return to their homes from which they have fled as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict, has been a major sticking point in the Israeli-Palestinian talks.
One-third of the registered Palestine refugees, more than 1.4 million, live in 58 recognized refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to UNRWA. The remaining two-thirds are spread across host countries, the West Bank and Gaza.
Russia has recognized an independent Palestinian state since 1988.