RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Belgium became the latest Western nation to reach out to the new Palestinian government, declaring Friday that the unity coalition was more moderate than its Hamas-led predecessor.
Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht urged the new government to secure the release of a captured Israeli soldier, halt all violence and bring its chaotic security forces under a single authority.
De Gucht also called for a halt to Jewish settlement in the West Bank and said he expects a reluctant Israel to be prepared to enter into talks on a final peace deal with President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah -- the government's point man on negotiations.
Under a Saudi-brokered power-sharing deal, the Palestinian Cabinet was reconfigured last week in an effort to curb deadly infighting and get relief from an international boycott by adding moderate Fatah and independent ministers to what had been an exclusively Islamic militant Hamas lineup.
Hamas has killed more than 250 Israelis in suicide bombings, and the EU, U.S. and Israel classify it as a terrorist organization.
After the group was elected to power a year ago, the international community and Israel imposed bruising sanctions on the Palestinian Authority to try to force it to renounce violence, recognize the Jewish state and accept existing peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians.
The new government did not explicitly accept those demands. Israel immediately announced it would shun it and suspend any peacemaking plans.
But European Union and U.S. officials have indicated they detect shifts in the attitude of the coalition administration, which has agreed to "respect" past peace accords. And they have begun meeting with non-Hamas members of the Cabinet while they size up the new government's actions.
"It cannot be denied. There are hints in the government program toward meeting the (international) criteria," De Gucht said, after meeting with Palestinian Foreign Minister Ziad Abu Amr, an independent, and before meeting with Abbas.
Norway, which is not an EU member, already has recognized the new Palestinian government. And a senior U.S. diplomat met with the Palestinian finance minister, another independent, this week.
While Israel has said it will not meet foreign dignitaries who visit Hamas officials, it has not spelled out its policy toward those meeting non-Hamas Cabinet members. The Foreign Ministry refused to comment on De Gucht's talks with Abu Amr.
The EU's relations with the new Palestinian alliance will be determined in part by how the coalition responds to demands to stop violence, reform its multiple and rival security forces and free Cpl. Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured last June by Hamas-linked militants, De Gucht said.
Abu Amr said the "substance" of the government's program met the international conditions.
"In the coming weeks, we will be working hard with the international community and the Europeans to make sure every contradiction (in the program) is removed," he said.
In the West Bank city of Ramallah Friday, U.S. Mideast envoy David Welch met Abbas and his senior aides ahead of a visit on Sunday by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said the talks focused on the "political horizon with the Israelis and achieving President Bush's vision of two states living side by side."
The U.S. has long identified Abbas, a moderate who favors a negotiated peace agreement with Israel, as an acceptable negotiating partner. U.S. officials said Welch did not meet with any members of the Hamas-Fatah Cabinet.
Palestinian infighting persisted. A 4-year-old boy caught in the crossfire of a shootout between Fatah and Hamas forces died of his wounds Friday, while a pro-Fatah security man was abducted and killed, Palestinian security officials said.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
