CHIRAC CALLS FOR WORLD BANK TO PAY HAMAS

Chirac calls for fund to aid Palestinians
France has called for the creation of a World Bank fund to pay the salaries of Palestinian officials.

Jacques Chirac, the French president, proposed it on Friday before he met Mahmoud Abbas, his Palestinian counterpart in Paris.

Jerome Bonnafont, Chirac’s spokesman said France would raise the issue during talks on May 9 with the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia - the four key international players behind the stalled “road map” peace plan.

Ghazi Hamad, the Hamas administration spokesman, said salary payments “should be co-ordinated with the government”, to prevent what he called “the creation of a second government”.

Omar Abdelrazek, Hamas finance minister, said: “In principle we don’t have a problem with that. 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.”