PWA: Not aware of World Bank contacts Red-Dead canal
Date: 30 / 06 / 2009 Time: 14:17
www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=38922

Bethlehem - Ma'an - Palestinian Water Authority Chairman Shadad Al-Atili
said the Palestinian Authority (PA) was not made aware that Israel was
approaching the World Bank for funding a project for a canal from the Red
Sea to the Dead Sea.

Al-Atili was responding to a report in the mass-selling Israeli newspaper
Yedioth Ahronot, that said Israel had secured a pledge of World Bank funding
for a tripartite Israel-PA-Jordan canal project. The newspaper said Israel's
Vice Premier Silvan Shalom had received this assurance during a Washington
meeting with World Bank officials.

Al-Atili told Ma'an's radio network that Shalom does not have a right to
make decisions in this regard without contacting all the concerned parties.

He pointed out that a feasibility study was signed in 2005, and was given to
the World Bank to examine it and fund it in case concerned parties decided
to carry out the project. Therefore, he said, the World Bank is meant to
supervise and fund the project rather than make a decision whether to
implement it or not.

Al-Atili explained that alternatives were being studied in case the canal
project was proved infeasible, and so all parties should jointly agree on
how to manage water resources in the Jordan River basin.

He explained that a meeting was scheduled forone July between members of the
directive committee to study a Jordanian project which was suggested during
the last Davos conference held in the Dead Sea area.