WEST BANK: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas/Prime Minister Haniyeh says Palestinian unity government should be respected

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought explanations on Sunday (February 18) from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas about a unity government that Israel said it intended to shun with Washington's blessing. Pledging to continue to "probe the diplomatic horizon", Rice travelled to the occupied West Bank to meet the moderate Palestinian leader just hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made clear that prospects for peace had dimmed. "Foremost being the issue that we will discuss today, which is the 3 way meeting that will be held tomorrow with prime minister Ehud Olmert in order to explore the horizon of future Israeli Palestinian relations and the horizon for a peace process," Abbas told reporters at the beginning of his meeting with Rice. The U.S. Secretary of State said that diplomacy in the region comes at a "complicated time". "And it is of course an interesting - even complicated time, and I have been saying, Mr. President, that a number of people have said it's a complicated time, and I've said that if I waited for an uncomplicated time to come to the Middle East, perhaps I would never get on the airplane. So, I look very much forward with discussing the current situation with you, hearing more about your discussions in Saudi Arabia. I look forward to discussing with you the trilateral we will have with Prime Minister Olmert tomorrow. I hope that this meeting with the three of us will be an opportunity to examine the current situation, to commit - re-commit to existing agreements, but also to begin to explore and probe the political and diplomatic horizon - and I very much look forward to that meeting," Rice said. Olmert said he and U.S. President George W. Bush agreed in a telephone call on Friday (February 16) to boycott Abbas's planned unity government with the Islamist Hamas group if international demands on policy towards Israel were not met. Rice, Olmert and Abbas were due to hold a summit in Jerusalem on Monday (February 19). No joint news conference was planned for those talks, a sign of low expectations. In Gaza, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told reporters that Palestinians stood united, despite international pressure to re-examine their policies. "We are standing with President Abu Mazen in protecting this agreement and against the outside pressure by the American administration and by others who seek to to return the clock backward and to keep a situation of internal disturbance in the Palestinian area. We are a one and united Palestinian rank to protect this agreement and in the face of outside pressures," Haniyeh said. It was a sentiment repeated by Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum, who also called for the international committee to lift an economic boycott on the Palestinian government. The boycott went into effect last year after Hamas came to power after parliamentary elections. A unity deal that Abbas and Hamas leaders reached in Saudi Arabia this month fell short of meeting the conditions set by the Quartet, a group comprised of the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. More than 90 Palestinians have been killed in recent factional warfare between Fatah and Hamas. Both groups hope the unity deal can put an end to internal violence and also persuade Western donors to restore direct aid to the Palestinian Authority that was cut off after Hamas came to power. ENDS

ITN Source | February 19, 2007

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