The US made its first contact with the new Hamas-Fatah coalition -- ending a yearlong diplomatic boycott of the Palestinian government just three days after the more moderate unity team took office.
The meeting on Tuesday between a US diplomat and the Palestinian finance minister signaled a break in policy between Israel and its closest ally and could mark a significant step toward ending a painful aid cutoff against the Palestinian government.
Jacob Walles, the US consul in Jerusalem, set the precedent with a short 10km drive to the West Bank city of Ramallah, where he met Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, an internationally respected economist and political independent. It was the first official US meeting with a Palestinian Cabinet minister in a year.
"This meeting was part of my contacts with the international community," Fayyad told reporters.
Fayyad, a former World Bank official, has been leading Palestinian efforts to end international sanctions, imposed a year ago when Hamas won an election and established a government.
The US, EU and Israel label Hamas a terror group and ban contact with it.
Hamas still holds the most seats in the Palestinian Cabinet, including the post of prime minister. But the addition of prominent figures like Fayyad to the team has brought into question the concept of boycotting the whole Cabinet, as Israel is doing.
In Washington, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the meeting was in accordance with US policy.
"We weren't going to cut off contacts with those individuals with whom we had previously had contact," he said. "I know the Israeli government has a different view in this regard."
Israel itself often sent officials to meet Fayyad when he served as finance minister in a Fatah-led Cabinet. Israel and the West have maintained constant contact with President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah -- a moderate elected separately from the Hamas-dominated parliament.
But Israel has been adamant about imposing a total ban on the new unity government. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert even ruled out peace talks with Abbas, saying contacts would be limited to humanitarian issues, and Israel has been urging the US and Europe to keep up the diplomatic and aid ban.
The response has been lukewarm. US officials said they would meet individually with non-Hamas officials, and Tuesday's meeting between Walles and Fayyad signaled that the diplomatic boycott had ended.
In a statement, the US State Department said only that the talks were "part of an ongoing dialogue on a variety of issues."
Olmert's office pointedly refused to comment on the Fayyad-Walles meeting.
As consul in Jerusalem, Walles serves as the de facto US ambassador to the Palestinian territories.
Three cases of Candida auris, a fungus that can cause a yeast infection known as candidiasis in humans, have been reported in Taiwan over the past few years, but they did not display drug resistance, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said yesterday. Lo made the statement at a news conference in Taipei, one day after the Washington Post reported that the potentially deadly fungus is spreading in US hospitals. The fungus was first discovered in Japan in 2009 and poses a danger to immunocompromised people, with an estimated mortality rate of 30 to 60 percent, Lo
‘DIRE’: Taiwan would not engage in ‘dollar diplomacy,’ the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, after China reportedly offered Honduras up to US$3 billion to establish relations The government yesterday recalled its ambassador to Honduras after the Central American nation sent its foreign minister to China, signaling that it would sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Suspicions concerning ties with Honduras are rife after Honduran President Xiomara Castro on Tuesday last week wrote on Twitter that her country would pursue diplomatic ties with China. Honduran Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduardo Enrique Reina traveled to China on Wednesday “to promote efforts for the establishment of diplomatic relations” on instructions from Castro, Reuters yesterday quoted Honduran presidential spokesman Ivis Alvarado as saying. The government “has decided to immediately recall the ambassador to Honduras
‘NOTHING NEW’: China should not use Tsai Ing-wen’s transits through the US as a pretext to step up aggressive activity in the Taiwan Strait, a Washington official said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is to stop over in the US on her way to and from Central America next week, but her administration would not confirm a meeting with US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Tsai’s delegation is to leave Taipei on Wednesday next week and stop over in New York City, Presidential Office spokeswoman Lin Yu-chan (林聿禪) told a news conference yesterday. Tsai is then to head to Guatemala on Saturday next week for talks with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei and to meet with Taiwanese expatriates, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. On April 3, Tsai is scheduled to travel
MEDIA, SOCIETY FOCUS: Doublethink Lab said that Beijing is trying to coerce countries that rely on China economically to pursue policies in its favor China has stronger influence over Taiwan’s media and society than any other country, the Taipei-based Doublethink Lab think tank said yesterday, as it announced its China Index gauging Beijing’s global influence. Taiwan ranked 11th overall among 82 countries assessed, but first in terms of social and media influence, Doublethink Lab chairman Puma Shen (沈伯洋) told a news conference in Taipei. More than 200 experts and academics participated in the project, including some highly influential figures, Shen said. The index collects information from countries worldwide to gauge China’s influence and assess how Chinese policies affect them, Shen said. In terms of Chinese
RSS