Last update - 00:00 22/04/2007
Abbas says efforts being made to free kidnapped BBC reporter
By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondent and Reuters
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday efforts were being made to secure the release of a BBC journalist abducted in Gaza as well as an Israeli soldier held by militants.
British reporter Alan Johnston has been missing since March 12 and Abbas has dismissed a claim from an Islamist group to have killed him.
"I have said he is alive and we are making efforts to get him released," Abbas said after meeting Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis in Athens.
Abbas also said Palestinian authorities were working to secure the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been held by militants for 10 months. At the same time, he called on Israel to release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners.
Abbas repeated a call for the lifting of a year-old Western aid embargo on the Palestinian Authority. It was imposed to push the Hamas Islamist group, which heads the government, to recognise Israel and renounce violence.
Hamas official decries abduction
Jailed Hamas official Sheikh Hassan Yusef on Friday called for Johnston's the immediate release.
Yusef, who is one of the prisoners Hamas wants in return for Shalit, said the abduction was "morally wrong."
Also on Friday, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas told Dutch television station RTL-4 that Johnston's captors did not have political motives but rather wanted "personal demands" met in exchange for the journalist.
Haniyeh did not offer any details about what these demands might entail and said the British government had made clear to the Palestinian Authority that it should not use force to free Johnston because it could endanger his life.