JERUSALEM, 12 April 2006 — The United Nations advised its aid agencies yesterday to avoid having contacts with Hamas political leaders, but balked at US calls to isolate the cash-strapped Palestinian government.
UN officials said the agencies would maintain contacts with rank-and-file officials in the new Hamas-led authority, while avoiding senior leaders in the Islamic movement, which won elections in January and took power two weeks ago.
The restrictions are likely to increase the sense of isolation felt by the Hamas leadership after the United States and the European Union cut off funding and contacts in the past week and the severing of links by Israel. A senior UN official said UN aid agencies would “avoid political contact” with Cabinet ministers and other high-level appointments in the new government.
But by maintaining contacts at a “technical level for operational purposes,” the United Nations bucked efforts by the United States to entirely shun the government and ministries which provide essential services. “Contacts will continue at levels to ensure the continuation of humanitarian programs,” a UN official told Reuters.
UN officials say they are concerned that a cut-off in direct assistance to a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority could trigger a humanitarian crisis and hobble the very institutions that would be needed to run any future Palestinian state.
The United Nations is a member of the quartet of Middle East mediators with the United States, the European Union and Russia. Russia has brushed aside pressure from the United States and Israel to shun Hamas and yesterday called the decision to cut off funding to the Palestinian government a mistake.
The UN move followed an offer by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to resume peace talks with Israel as soon as it formed a new government, even though the Israelis are shunning the Palestinian Authority led by his Hamas rivals.
“We are ready to begin negotiations on the basis of the road map from the minute the Israeli government is formed,” Abbas told reporters in Ramallah, referring to the US-backed peace plan that was drawn up in 2002 but never implemented. “There is no other way but direct negotiations based on international legitimacy,” he said. Israel has said it will not deal with Hamas but has left the door open to negotiations with Abbas, whose once-dominant Fatah movement was defeated by Hamas in the polls.
