Region | Palestinian Territories
New cabinet hopes for cooperation from West
The new Palestinian government led by Hamas believes the West will eventually agree to talk to it, Finance Minister Omar Abdul Razeq told the Financial Times yesterday as Washington issued a formal ban on contacts with the group.
- Financial Times
- Published: 00:00 March 31, 2006
Ramallah: The new Palestinian government led by Hamas believes the West will eventually agree to talk to it, Finance Minister Omar Abdul Razeq told the Financial Times yesterday as Washington issued a formal ban on contacts with the group.
Abdul Razeq, an economist who studied at Iowa State University, said one of his first tasks on assuming office today would be to initiate contacts with the international community.
US officials in the region, however, were instructed by e-mail yesterday not to have any contacts with Palestinian ministries as of 6pm last night, when the new government was sworn in.
"We believe these positions will be reversed, hopefully by Europe in the beginning and later by the United States once they realise that we are serious about the financial transparency and accountability they have been demanding from the Palestinian National Authority," Abdul Razeq said, "and once they know we are stopping corruption and we are working with the public funds in the way international standards demand and require."
The new Finance Minister was hopeful his government would be able to find alternative sources of foreign aid.
The Palestinian Authority is facing chronic shortfalls in a budget that runs to about $160 million (about Dh587.8 million) a month. Foreign donors have given about $1 billion (about Dh3.6 billion) a year and the US says it will donate only to humanitarian agencies in future.
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"I hope the United States and Europe realise that they should separate political problems and political stances from the economic and humanitarian situation of the Palestinian people," said Abdul Razeq. "The economic problems we are facing and the humanitarian problems we are facing are the results of occupation. They are not the result of Fatah being in power or Hamas being in power."
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