Palestinian Authority welcomes Prodi victory

aki: The Palestinian Authority's new foreign minister has welcomed the victory in Italy's general election of the centre-left coalition led by Romano Prodi. Mahmud al-Zahar's remarks followed an interview given by Prodi to the Qatar-based Arab television network, al-Jazeera, on Wednesday. Prodi's "courage and political engagement," would contribute "to convince those European Union nations still undecided whether to continue supporting the Palestinian people and maintain contacts with their democractically elected government," the foreign minster said.

On Monday, the European Union froze financial aid to the PA, citing Hamas' failure to meet international conditions for its continued support - recognising Israel and renouncing violence.

According to al-Jazeera's translation of the interview into Arabic, Prodi, who is likely to become Italy's prime minister next month, appealed to the EU to rethink its position towards the Hamas-led Palestinian government. Read more

db: Prodi would need quite a backbone to take on 'international' [western] government opinion - which is subject to US orders.