WASHINGTON, April 10: The United States will provide nearly $60 million in aid to boost security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas after members of Congress dropped their objections to the deal, officials said on Tuesday.

“We are clear to proceed,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said of the $59 million aid plan.Another official said $43 million of the funds would go to train and equip the Palestinian Presidential Guard, which answers directly to Abbas, and another 16 would be spent to improve security and infrastructure at the main cargo crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

President George W. Bush initially requested $86 million in January to provide training, vehicles and other “non-lethal” support for security forces loyal to Abbas, the moderate president of the Palestinian Authority who had been locked in a violent power struggle with the Islamic movement Hamas.

But Congress balked at approving the funds and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice lowered her request last month to $59 million after Abbas agreed to join a power-sharing government with Hamas.

She told Congress at the time that the State Department was uncertain it could ensure that none of the money initially to be disbursed ended up in the hands of Hamas, which the US, EU and Israel consider a terrorist group.

Israel and the United States have refused to recognise or lift an aid boycott against the unity government due to Hamas’s refusal to renounce violence and formally recognise Israel’s right to exist.

Abbas’s decision to set up the unity government between his Fatah party and Hamas upended a bid by Rice to revive negotiations on the creation of a Palestinian state, though Israel has agreed to maintain contacts with Abbas on security issues and other confidence-building measures.

Rice submitted her revised aid request to Congress on March 23 and under US law, the legislature had 25 days to object to the deal, a delay which expired over the weekend, McCormack said. —AFP