June 19, 2007	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 03, 1428

WASHINGTON, June 18: US President George W. Bush on Monday assured Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas he had the support of the US administration, the White House said, hinting the US may look at ending its aid embargo.

“The president pledged help and support,” White House spokesman Tony Snow said, adding that Bush spoke for 15 minutes by telephone with Abbas early on Monday after Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip last week.

“President Abbas described the steps that he has taken in the last week forming an emergency government and appointing (Salam Fayyad) as the prime minister,” Snow said.

“Also he noted that he wanted to resume the political process and open political channels.” Islamist fighters routed the mainstream Palestinian security services controlled by Abbas and loyal to his Fatah party after days of gunbattles in the Gaza Strip last week in which more than 110 people were killed.

Abbas on Sunday swore in an emergency government headed by the respected economist, Fayyad, after sacking the Hamas-led unity government and slammed Hamas’s seizure of the Gaza Strip as a ‘military coup’. Snow was speaking as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert began a series of meetings with top US officials in the United States on Monday to find ways to rekindle Middle East peace talks.

Bush told Abbas that “he’ll be meeting tomorrow with Prime Minister Olmert and will share the ideas” Abbas raised, Snow added.

Snow refused to say whether the United States would lift the embargo imposed on direct aid to the Palestinian Authority after Hamas won last year’s election, amid fears the funds would be diverted into the pockets of the Islamist militants.

Hamas is blacklisted in the United States as a terrorist organisation.

But Snow said: “I’m sure that’s going to come up. When we have something to announce we will.” Olmert will meet Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Monday before holding a third summit in just over a year with Bush.

The US consul-general in Jerusalem Jacob Walles meanwhile said on Monday that Washington would normalise relations with the new Palestinian government.

“I told him that we will re-engage with this government. We will again have a normal relation with this government,” Walles told reporters after the 90-minute meeting with Fayyad.

“I told him that the USA supports him. We will make some statements in Washington concerning our assistance programme,” he said, describing his talks with Fayyad as a “very good meeting.” “We talked about Gaza and we talked about the need to address the humanitarian situation and to make sure that the people in Gaza don’t suffer as result of what happened there,” Walles added.—AFP