RAMALLAH, West Bank, June 8, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A day after revealing that British diplomats had been in contact with Hamas-linked officials and trying to calm Israeli disquiet, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw ruled out on Wednesday, June 8, removing the Palestinian resistance movement from a “terror” blacklist.

“The fact that a terror organisation stands in elections doesn't mean it ceases to be a terror organisation. Hamas will stay on that list until it has renounced terrorist violence in action as well as in words,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Straw as telling reporters.

Speaking at a news conference alongside Straw, Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Qidwa said the Palestinian Authority would continue its dialogue with Hamas.

“There has been an important and positive dialogue among all the Palestinian factions on the situation on the ground, leading to an agreement on winding down the situation,” he said in reference to a de facto shaky truce agreed earlier this year.

“The way forward is through this dialogue,” he added.

On arriving in Israel Tuesday, Straw reassured Tel Aviv on his country's position on Hamas and other resistance groups.

“We are ready wherever the evidence is to see the strengthening of the sanctions against Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah and any other organisation where that is justified,” Straw told reporters before meeting Israeli counterpart Silvan Shalom.

Hamas secured a landslide victory over the mainstream Fatah in the first-ever Gaza Strip council elections in January.

It also beat Fatah in four out of five major cities in the second stage of municipal polls last month before court rulings cancelled results in three main municipalities and ordered a run-off election.

Similarly, Hezbollah’s ticket secured a clean sweep in the second round of parliamentary elections in Lebanon, a big win described by politicians and newspapers as a carte blanche for the Lebanese resistance movement to retain its resistance arms against Israel.

Speaking to the BBC before his departure for the Middle East, Straw revealed that British diplomats had twice met with newly elected Hamas mayors.

“We have a diplomatic job to do and our diplomats in the occupied territories see part of their job, and indeed their job is, to have contact with elected [Hamas] representatives,” he told Radio 4's Today program on Tuesday.

“But on each of those occasions our staff have spelled out to the elected officials, and they've been seen in that capacity and that capacity alone, our position overall in respect of no dealings with Hamas as an organisation as long as it continues to support violence and the destruction of Israel.”

The contacts included a meeting between middle-ranking British diplomats and Mohammed Al-Masri, the acting mayor of Qalkilya, the West Bank village where Hamas took all 15 council seats, The Independent reported Wednesday.

The mayor, Wajih Nazal, is in an Israeli prison under administrative detention.

During his previous cabinet job as home secretary, Straw was responsible for including Hamas on a British blacklist in November 2001, after similar action by the United States. It was also put on an EU blacklist in 2003.

US officials and diplomats told Reuters earlier in the week that the Bush administration was showing signs of easing its hard-line stance on Hamas in response to the group’s political clout and soaring popularity.

They said that the policy shift also follows a behind-the-scene push by European allies, including Britain and France, for Washington to drop its call to dismantle Hamas altogether.

Straw’s disclosure caused consternation in Israel, where a senior government official said meetings with Hamas members were a mistake, Reuters reported.

“Any attempt to make a distinction is very dangerous because it would mean you legitimize part of the organisation but you don't stop the terror activity of the other part,” he claimed.

However, the Guardian reported Wednesday that Israel itself was adapting to the new reality created by Hamas election victory.

The Israeli military has working contact with the resistance group in towns such as Qalqilya where it is now in power, the British daily said.

Giora Eiland, the chief security adviser to Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon, said last week that Tel Aviv would not stand in the way of Hamas working as a political party.