Having contacts with Hamas necessary - Paris

Paris: France said on Monday it had held talks with Hamas, in an apparent softening of its support for the US-led policy of isolating the Palestinian Islamist group that seized control of the Gaza Strip last year.

Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner confirmed a report in the French daily Le Figaro quoting a retired ambassador who it said had met senior Hamas officials about a month ago.

"It would be difficult to deny it since the man who is in touch with them has spoken," Kouchner told Europe 1 radio. "Having contacts is necessary. We had some before the invasion [takeover by Hamas] of Gaza."

The move annoyed Washington, which was irritated by former US president Jimmy Carter's meeting in April with Hamas leader Khalid Mesha'al.

The State Department frowned on Kouchner's comments and reiterated that the Bush administration feels Hamas should be shunned until it changes its behaviour.

"We don't think it is wise or appropriate," spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington when asked about French contacts with the group. "We have spoken out about that in the past when other individual states have chosen to have contacts. We don't believe it is helpful to the process of bringing peace to the region."

"Our position remains that Hamas should be forced to make a choice," he said. "The international system has laid out various conditions for them, they have yet to meet those conditions." But US ally Israel said France's position was unchanged.

"We have been in touch with the highest levels of the French government and we have received assurances that there is no change in the position of France vis-a-vis Hamas," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said.

Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri confirmed that leaders of the group had met a French representative and envoys from other European countries, and said that it showed Europe realised it was it was "the wrong policy to isolate and boycott Hamas".

Kouchner played down the talks between France and Hamas.

"They are not relations. They are contacts," he said.

"We have to be able to speak to each other if we want to play a role, if we want our emissaries to go to Gaza, firstly. But the real discussion is between Palestinians. We have always said that."