WASHINGTON, March 18: The United States on Sunday said it will deal with the new Palestinian government only if it agrees to forgo violence and fully recognise Israel.

US national security adviser Stephen Hadley laid down that hard line in remarks on US television, after Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, in a speech to parliament, insisted on his new government's right to all forms of resistance, rejecting a key international condition for acceptance.

“This government needs to renounce terror and violence,” Hadley told CNN.

“It needs to acknowledge the right of Israel to exist,” he said, adding that those conditions so far have not been met.

Meanwhile, a US embassy spokeswoman in Israel said the United States is ready to work with members of the new Palestinian government who are not from Hamas, which Washington considers a terrorist outfit.

“Individuals who are not members of foreign terrorist organisations but who do hold office in the unity government, we do not rule out contact with those individuals,” the spokeswoman said.

Israel has called on the international community to uphold a boycott of the entire government until it explicitly agrees to international demands, including recognition of the Jewish state and renunciation of violence.

Officials in Washington said however they will maintain ties with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, despite his decision to share power with Hamas, a group responsible for scores of suicide bombings.

“Abbas is not part of the government. He is the president of the Palestinian Authority,” Hadley told CNN.

Seen as a moderate with broad-based support in the West, Abbas is due to meet US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on March 24 in Ramallah and again on March 26 in Amman, sources in Abbas's office said Sunday.

Hadley said Haniya's remarks flouted the principles espoused by the Quartet guiding Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts -- the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia, and called on the new government to commence “cracking down on violence, and stopping rocket attacks on Israel.

“If they take those kinds of actions, it will show that they're moving toward the Quartet principles,” Hadley said.

“We will not deal with this government until it accepts those principles,” he said. “We'll be watching obviously for the words and deeds of this government.” He added that the new government “needs to acknowledge the right of Israel to exist, and it needs to recognise the various agreements that have entered in between the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) and Israel.” Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has complained that the new government's program falls short of previous Western demands for a commitment to non-violence and recognition of the Jewish state's right to exist and urged an international boycott.

In that speech he included a vow to secure the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and to expand a truce in the Gaza Strip.—AFP