Region | Palestinian Territories
Olmert begins US trip bolstering Abbas
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert began a US visit on Sunday saying he considered a new emergency Palestinian government shorn of Islamist Hamas a partner for peace negotiations.
- Agencies
- Published: 23:36 June 18, 2007
New York: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert began a US visit on Sunday saying he considered a new emergency Palestinian government shorn of Islamist Hamas a partner for peace negotiations.
Olmert, who has been looking for a diplomatic breakthrough since the costly Lebanon war, planned to discuss the crisis sparked by Hamas's takeover of Gaza with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and, on Tuesday, with US President George W. Bush.
Israel has signaled it would agree to ease sanctions that Western powers imposed on the Palestinian Authority when Hamas, which refuses to recognize the Jewish state, swept to power.
With Abbas having formed a Cabinet of political independents under Western-trained economist Salam Fayyad, Olmert said he saw "an opportunity that has not existed for a long time."
"A government that is not a Hamas government is a partner," he told reporters accompanying him to New York.
Israel would explore with Bush how to "empower the moderates" after Hamas routed Abbas's secular Fatah in civil war in the Gaza Strip, an Olmert aide said.
Another senior Israeli official spoke of swift "gestures," including the release to Abbas -- who has dissolved his unity government with Hamas -- of a portion of the $700 million in Palestinian tax revenues Israel has been withholding.
But an economic and diplomatic embargo of the Hamas administration in Gaza would remain in place and be tightened in some areas, the official said.
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