PARIS, April 28: French President Jacques Chirac on Friday proposed the creation of a special account at the World Bank to channel international aid funds to the Palestinians and head off an impending financial meltdown in the territories.
The escrow account could be used to send payments directly to 160,000 Palestinian civil servants, thus bypassing the Hamas-led government which is being boycotted by the international community because of its opposition to peace with Israel.
But the Hamas rejected the proposal, saying it would not be frozen out of procedures to pay civil servants.
“In principle we don’t have a problem with that,” Hamas finance minister Omar Abdelrazek said.
“But we have to talk about the details and preserve the rights of the ministry of finance to control and oversee all the financial procedures,” Mr Abdelrazek added.
Mr Chirac made the suggestion during talks in Paris with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, who is in France on the last leg of a European tour urging the resumption of aid.
Last month the 25-member European Union decided to suspend non-humanitarian aid in order to put pressure on the Hamas government to participate in peace talks.
According to Mr Chirac’s spokesman, the president told Mr Abbas that ‘France would propose to its European and international partners... that they reflect very rapidly on a mechanism to allow the resumption of aid’.—AFP
