Johnston thanks the Palestinian people for their support

By Terri Judd

Alan Johnston thanked the Palestinian people for their support yesterday when he met President Mahmoud Abbas.

The BBC correspondent also singled out fellow journalists in the West Bank who had campaigned vociferously for him to be freed during his 16 weeks of captivity.

"I had a radio, I know how much the Palestinians were doing here to work for my release," he said. His comments came as an international debate raged over whether to open a dialogue with the radical Islamic group Hamas, which placed pressure on the reporter's captors to give him up.

While Mr Abbas made no comment yesterday, his aide Saeb Erekat said Mr Johnston's release ended "a scandalous chapter for the Palestinian people".

In an apparent jab at rivals, he said: "There is no need to consider this as scoring political points."

In the UK, however, 20 MPs from all parties including Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond, signed a Commons motion urging international engagement with Hamas, which is boycotted by the EU, US and Israel because of its links with terrorism.

Mr Johnston said he was looking forward to coming home. "You are about to see a really rapid decline in my profile. The whole Johnston family is about to go back to the obscurity in which it was extremely happy for about 45 years," he said,

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