GAZA CITY, January 31, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, which swept the legislative polls and is to form the new government, on Monday, January 30, exhorted the international community to continue helping the Palestinian people with financial and urged unconditional talks with the Middle East quartet.

"We call for dialogue without preliminary conditions and in a spirit of neutrality," senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniya told a news conference in Gaza City, reading out a message addressed to the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and United States, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"We call on you to continue moral and financial support, and to direct all aid to the Palestinian treasury so it can be used in keeping with the priorities of the Palestinian people," he added.

Haniya was speaking as EU foreign ministers and quartet representatives were to meet separately to discuss the implications of Hamas's election win.

The group has swept the parliamentary elections, winning 74 seats in the 133-seat Palestinian Legislative Council, while President Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah only got 45 seats.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also urged the international community on Monday to maintain its financial aid to the Palestinians.

"Our talks focused on the need to continue this aid so that our people can stand on their own feet," he told a joint news conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

Haniya said funds channeled into the Palestinian Authority would be used to "pay the salaries of civil servants, cover expenses of daily life and certain infrastructure projects".

He said Hamas would work to introduce "real reforms, bringing an end to corruption and strengthening justice, freedom and equality."

Fatah officials have said voters have punished Fatah for gangrenous corruption at a time when the Palestinians are hit by towering unemployment rates and grinding poverty, and the failure to establish a long-awaited statehood.

Hamas also on Monday sought to reassure investors in the Palestinian economy that their stocks would be safe.

The Al-Quds index of the Palestinian stock exchange, based in the West Bank town of Nablus, has fallen 4.69 percent since Hamas's shock victory, with many share offers failing to find buyers.

"After noting the sharp drop in Palestinian financial markets since Thursday, we want to reassure investors that Hamas considers the (stock exchange) an essential pillar of our national economy," Haniya said reading a separate statement.

"Hamas realizes that tens of thousands of Palestinian families have invested in this market and we assure them that the movement's economic policy will stimulate and develop this market."

"We have taken a very clear position, and now it is for them to react, but we have to give them some time," said Ferrero-Waldner. (Reuters)

The EU maintained its stick-and-carrot approach, saying it is ready to continue aid to the Palestinians but wants to see a Hamas-led government commit itself to peace with Israel.

"We have urged Hamas and all other factions to renounce violence (and) to respect Israel's right to exist," said Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, after chairing a meeting of EU ministers in Brussels.

"On that basis the EU stands ready to continue to support Palestinian economic development and democratic state-building," she said, quoting from formal conclusions agreed by the ministers.

The EU is the biggest donor of aid to the Palestinian Authority. Since 2003 it has given about 500 million euros (613 million dollars) to the Palestinians annually.

Earlier, EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said the bloc wanted to avoid the financial collapse of the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority.

"We are aware of the financial situation of the Palestinian Authority ... Everybody should make a concerted effort that the Palestinian Authority can function," she told a news briefing.

"Israel has to do its bit, the Arab countries ... and we will also take our responsibilities," she said, without giving further details.

Ferrero-Waldner underlined that only about a quarter of the EU aid goes directly to the Palestinian Authority, which would in theory be targeted by any decision to cut aid.

The United States, which has given more than $1.5 billion in aid to the Palestinians since 1993 and had budgeted $234 million for 2006, has begun a full review of such assistance program since Hamas's election win.

Ferrero-Waldner further called on the EU to give Hamas a month or two to decide its future course before making a definitive EU response to the group's poll victory.

"We have taken a very clear position, and now it is for them to react, but we have to give them some time," she told reporters.

"Let's have a sort of transitional period. Let's give them a certain timeframe. If it is 30 or 60 days, we'll have to see, but more or less," she added.

Her call was echoed by Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri.

"Maybe Hamas is well qualified to bring peace to the region, but for that the international community must give it a chance," Kasuri told the Institute for International Studies.

He said the West had called for democratic elections in the region, so it should accept the choice of the Palestinian people.

"You cannot have your cake and eat it," he said. "I think something positive could come out of it. Much depends on the Israeli elections (in March)…I hope the extremists do not win in Israel."

Hamas's election victory may have raised fears of a hardening in Palestinian attitudes towards Israel, but a poll Monday shows a vast majority want a negotiated peace with their Israel.

A survey conducted within days of the group's win showed 84 percent of Palestinians want a negotiated peace agreement with Israel, said the survey by the Ramallah-based Near East Consulting institute.

And even among Hamas supporters, over three quarters of those polled (77 percent) admitted they would like to see a negotiated settlement to the conflict.

Eighty-six percent said they want Abbas to remain in his post when Hamas forms a new government.

Perhaps more importantly in the wake of growing international pressure, nearly three-quarters want Hamas to drop its call for the destruction of Israel.

Nearly three out of four (73 percent) respondents said they believed the resistance movement should "change its position on the elimination of the state of Israel."

In contrast, a poll in an Israeli daily reflected a hardening of attitudes with only one in six (17.6 percent) people believing their government should conduct negotiations toward a final settlement with a Hamas-led government.

The figures in the Maariv daily showed a sharp drop from those published in a Yediot Aharonot poll conducted before last Wednesday's parliamentary election when 48 percent of respondents said Israel should talk to a Hamas-led government.

In Monday's survey, however, 52.7 percent said Israel should not engage in talks with such a government.