EU to cut aid if Hamas fails to renounce violence

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana arrives for the start of an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Salzburg yesterday. Man at right is unidentified. PHOTO: AFP

Speaking at a meeting of EU foreign ministers, External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said the bloc has done more than any other foreign partner to support the caretaker Palestinian government.

The 25-nation EU has released 120 million euros for Palestinians since January elections in which the militant Islamic group swept to power, threatening to derail the Middle East peace process.

But the EU official noted that the 25-nation bloc has set out conditions against which it will review funding once a new government is fully in place.

"The new government's positions on violence, on recognition of Israel and on existing agreements like the (Middle East peace) road map remain absolutely crucial," Ferrero-Waldner told reporters in Salzburg, Austria.

"We want to remain a reliable partner for the Palestinian people, but we will not go soft on our principles ... Money will not flow to the new authority unless it seeks peace by peaceful means."

The radical Islamic group this week presented proposals for forming a Palestinian coalition government with the Fatah party of President Mahmud Abbas, in the search for an elusive deal on sharing power.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana defended the EU's decision to keep funding the caretaker Palestinian government.

"The (Palestinian) Authority has a gigantic deficit, which could expand even further," he said. "What we have said is that we don't want to abandon the Palestinian people."

He underlined that Hamas remains on an EU blacklist of terrorist organisations. "So we can't cooperate with them legally," he said, but at the same time: "We have to find ways of supporting the Palestinian people."

Asked if Hamas could be removed from the EU blacklist if it meets the conditions, which would allow aid to continue, the EU official added: "If they do so, yes."

Under the Palestinian constitution, Hamas has three weeks to form a government, but the charter also provides for another 14-day extension. Abbas tasked him with assembling the next cabinet on February 21.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Islamic radical group Hamas's supremo Khaled Meshaal slammed yesterday the Israeli government's plan to finalise the country's borders by 2010 as a "declaration of war".

Meshaal, the Damascus-based political chief, told AFP in an interview that "Israel's unilateral disengagement from the Palestinian territories is a declaration of war against the Palestinian people."

The head of the militant group that won an upset victory in the Palestinian territories' January 25 election denounced Olmert's plans to fix Israel's permanent borders by 2010 through unilateral withdrawals from the West Bank.