ISRAEL: EU Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner arrives in Israel, meets Defence Minister Peretz.

EU Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner on a four-day visit to the region in a bid to encourage Palestinian factions to accept Quartet's principles. European Union's external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner arrived in Israel on Monday (February 26) and met Defence Minister Amir Peretz in the Ben Gurion airport on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. "I will want to hear the views of our Israeli partners, be it on the bilateral questions, be it also on the regional question which of course today are also of great importance to us," Ferrero-Waldner told reporters at the start of the meeting with Peretz. The EU is a member of the Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators, also comprising the United States, Russia and the United Nations. It demands that any Palestinian government renounce violence, recognise Israel and accept interim peace deals. The agreements of a planned unity Palestinian coalition between once dominated Fatah movement and the governing Hamas, which Washington views as a terrorist group, falls short of those demands. The Quartet is split over how to deal with the unity government. The United States and Israel want to continue to shun the unity government, whereas Russia and some other European governments favour a softer line. Ferrero-Waldner arrived in the region in a bid to encourage Palestinian factions to accept the principles. In recent days she explicitly held out the prospect of a resumption of direct aid if a new administration abided by the Quartet's principles. She said the EU planned to expand aid to needy Palestinians through a current temporary mechanism which bypassed Hamas. The U.S.-led boycott of the Hamas-led government has pushed the Palestinian Authority to the brink of financial collapse and raised poverty rates in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank. Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction, has said it will never recognise the Jewish state. During her four-day visit to the Middle East, Ferrero-Waldner is due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as well as Egyptian and Jordanian leaders.

ITN Source | February 27, 2007

Tags:. .airport. .whose. .movement. .agreements. .administration