EU seeks 96 million pounds for West Bank

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - EU advisers to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's police force said on Tuesday they were seeking $187 million (96 million pounds) for training, equipment and judicial projects but did not expect to get the full amount.

The head of the European Union training programme, Colin Smith, unveiled a list of nearly 30 training and building projects ahead of a June 24 security conference in Berlin.

Smith said Berlin would not be a pledging conference, and that the money would probably come out of $7.7 billion in pledges to the Palestinians announced in December.

"I doubt I will get all the money I want. One never does. But if I get a proportion of that, we can develop some of those projects," he told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Western officials cited donor fatigue following a series of high-profile conferences, including one last week in which nations pledged $20 billion in aid to Afghanistan.

U.S.-backed peace talks between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have also shown little sign of progress.

Smith, a top British law enforcement official, said he hoped in the next two years to build a police force able to combat both criminal and militant activity, a condition set by Israel for Palestinian statehood.

"They're a long way short of that at the moment..." he said.

Smith's package includes $134 million to train and equip police officers and build prisons, detention centres and police stations. "They lack capacity, they lack equipment, they lack infrastructure," he said.