Rice: Palestinian Aid Decision Coming Soon

Thu Mar 30, 6:08 PM ET

BERLIN - The United States should soon decide how it will give more aid to the Palestinians that would not be diverted to bankroll the Palestinian government led by the militant group Hamas, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

The top U.S. diplomat spoke as her newly installed Hamas counterpart accused Washington of crimes against the Muslim world.

Rice, in Europe for talks on Iran's nuclear program, said Thursday that there is international resolve that Tehran must answer suspicions that it wants to build nuclear weapons.

"The international community is united and expects Iran to adhere to the just demands of the international community that its nuclear activities be demonstrably for civilian purposes," Rice said Thursday after meeting with counterparts from the other permanent, veto-holding members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany.

A day after the new Hamas-led Palestinian government was sworn into office, the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations issued a statement warning Hamas that it must recognize Israel and seek peace talks if it wants to be guaranteed continued aid.

"The Quartet concurred that there inevitably will be an effect on direct assistance to that government and its ministries" if those conditions are not met, the four mediators for Middle East peace said.

"The principle is very clear," Rice told reporters Wednesday evening while flying to Europe. "We're not going to ... provide funding to a Hamas-led government, but we are going to look at what we can do to increase humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people and what mechanisms we can use to do that, to make certain that the money is not indeed supporting the Hamas-led government."

Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, sworn in Wednesday, said the Palestinian Authority's new government would not cave to international pressure to change its ways and that it has no plans to negotiate with Israel.

"America is committing big crimes against the Arab and Islamic countries," Zahar told The Associated Press. The decision to cut off aid to a Hamas government "will intensify the gap between the American people, American interests and the Middle East in general."

Since Hamas' parliamentary election victory on Jan. 25, the West has been threatening to cut nearly $1 billion in annual aid to the Palestinian Authority, about half its annual budget.

The United States has nearly completed a wide review of its aid programs for the Palestinians, a review begun after the surprise Hamas victory.

"It is drawing to a close and I would expect to look at some decisions pretty soon," Rice said.

She said the level of future U.S. aid is one question mark, as is the problem of deciding what kinds of projects to fund through nongovernmental organizations or other means and "what kinds of aid might in fact get diverted and so you want to avoid that."

The United States and the European Union list Hamas as a terrorist organization. The United States has said it will have no dealings with Hamas and has already moved to cut off the relatively small amount of aid it had sent directly to the Palestinian government under the previous leadership of the secular Fatah Party.

On confronting Iran, envoys from its allies Russia and China were blunt in saying they want no harsh consequences for Tehran. The U.S. and some other allies want the option of pursuing economic sanctions or other punishments should Iran fail to comply with U.N. Security Council demands issued Wednesday.

"It can only be resolved through peaceful means. The Chinese side feels that there has already been enough turmoil in the Middle East," said Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo. "We do not want to see new turmoil being introduced to the region."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said flatly that Russia opposes sanctions on principle.

Those statements amounted to indirect indictments of the tougher U.S. and European approach, and call into question whether the U.N. Security Council will be able to put muscle behind its rhetoric on Iran.

Meanwhile, Rice, who was spending the next few days in England, had been invited by her British counterpart, Jack Straw, to attend Friday prayers at Masjide Al Hidayah mosque in Blackburn. However, that was canceled after mosque officials said anti-war protesters presented a security threat.

___

On the Net:

State Department: http://www.state.gov

Source

About headlines and content that has changed after it was added to this site - see disclaimer here

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.