US reacts cautiously to French call for Palestinian aid

The State Department said it had not seen the proposal by French President Jacques Chirac to create a special World Bank account to pay the salaries of civil servants working for the Hamas-led government.

But deputy spokesman Adam Ereli added that "we clearly have our strictures, both political as well as legal, in terms of providing funds to a foreign terrorist organization," as Hamas is designated here.

Under Chirac's proposal, an escrow account would be used to send payments directly to 160,000 Palestinian civil servants, bypassing Hamas and averting an impending financial crisis in the territories.

Ereli said there was no US intention to hurt the Palestinian people by depriving them of humanitarian aid. "We'll continue to look for creative and workable solutions to that very difficult conundrum," he said.

He withheld direct comment on Chirac's proposal made during the French president's talks in Paris with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, who is winding up a European tour to lobby for the resumption of aid.

Chirac said he would bring up the issue at a May 9 meeting of the so-called Middle East diplomatic quartet -- the European Union, the United States, the United Nations and Russia.

But Ereli said the quartet had a firm approach to Hamas that required the group to recognize Israel, renounce violence and respect agreements that the previous Palestinian Authority administration had negotiated.

"And they (Hamas) haven't done that," the US spokesman said.

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