EU to support Palestinian national unity govt
EU foreign ministers in plan to signal strong support today for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ bid to form a national unity government.
Such a government would replace a Hamas-led one, whose strident anti-Israel views caused international aid to dry up, triggering financial chaos.
In Brussels, Belgium, Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot said the EU would stick to demands formulated with the United States, Russia and the United Nations that the Palestinian government must recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept previous peace accords.
“We are willing to engage with the Palestinian authorities if they are willing to comply with the three demands,” Bot told reporters as he arrived for the meeting. He said signals from the Palestinians so far were “not very positive”.
The Palestinians hope that bringing moderates from Abbas’ Fatah party into a unity government with Hamas could prompt the EU and other world powers to restore direct aid that was frozen after the militant group won January’s parliamentary election.
The joint government, which is expected to take several weeks to form, is to be based on a document that calls for a Palestinian state alongside Israel - effectively recognising the Jewish state.
But while Hamas has said it will support Abbas’ efforts to seek peace, it is refusing to give up its calls for Israel’s destruction.
After meeting Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah late yesterday, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy indicated formation of such a government could lead to resumption of assistance. He welcomed the document implicitly recognising Israel and said if the new government accepts international demands, “the international community should re-evaluate and revisit its position toward political contacts and aid".
EU ministers are expected to discuss whether the unity government plan represents a significant step toward acceptance of the demands to recognise Israel and forgo violence and whether it could justify a relaxation of the sanctions.
The United States – one of the “Quartet” of Mideast mediators along with Russia, the EU and the UN – has cautioned against any hasty moves to resume the aid.
“We don’t think that anything qualitatively has changed with respect to the Palestinian Authority and that we would expect that the Quartet principles apply and that everybody would live up to those principles,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington yesterday.
Oxfam International yesterday urged the EU “to immediately resume normal international aid to the Palestinian Authority in order to avert a looming humanitarian crisis.”
Officials from the United States, the EU, the United Nations and Russia will meet next week in New York to assess chances of reviving their stricken “road map” to peace plan and improving Palestinians’ financial plight.
The internationally backed road map, a staged plan that calls for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, was launched by US President George Bush with great fanfare in June 2003. But neither the Palestinians nor Israel met their initial obligations, and the plan never got off the ground.
The EU is likely to extend a World Bank-led emergency aid programme for three months. Since July, the EU has been making emergency aid payments through the program, which bypasses the Hamas-led government.
