ARAB-EUROPEAN RELATIONS - Feb 21 - Blair Hints UK May Deal With Hamas.

The UK indicates it can be prepared to do business with the Islamic group Hamas, in comments that underlined the growing difference in approach between Europe and the US on how best to pursue peace in the Middle East. Speaking in London ahead of a meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, PA president, Tony Blair, British PM, welcomed the agreement earlier this month to form a Palestinian government of national unity. He even anticipated working with officials from Hamas, which agreed during talks in Mecca to set up the government with Abbas's Fatah party. "It's far easier to deal with the situation in Palestine if there is a national unity government", he said. "I hope we can make progress, including even with the more sensible elements of Hamas". By contrast, US State Sec Condoleezza Rice, said earlier this month that her efforts to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian agreement had "been made more complicated by the unity government". "We want to see this [unity] government in operation. We're not interested in the rhetoric, we're interested in its actions", said a British government official last night. "We have to find a way forward here, and if we find people we can do business with we have to work with that". Many British and European officials say that their approach differs from that of the US and Israel, who are more focused on Hamas's anti-Israel programme and charter rather than on the possible behaviour of Hamas politicians while in government office. After Hamas won parliamentary elections last year the international Quartet - comprising the EU, the US, Russia and the UN - called for the Palestinian government to renounce violence, respect past peace agreements and recognise Israel. Because of Hamas's failure to sign up to such principles, the US and the EU have refused to fund or establish contacts with the Hamas-led administration. But some European officials now privately argue that the condition on recognising Israel was too stringent and that the US has an "unrealistic" attitude to negotiating with extremist groups. Speaking ahead of a meeting of the Quartet in Berlin on Feb 21 evening, Sergei Lavrov, Russia's FM, added that the aid embargo should be lifted. But Ms Rice repeated the US's tough stance against Hamas, which it lists as a terrorist organisation. She brushed aside suggestions of easing sanctions, arguing that the principles established by the Quartet after the Hamas victory remained "critically important". The US and Israel have argued that the accord reached in Mecca to establish a national unity government does not go far enough, as Hamas only agreed to "respect" existing agreements with Israel. Ms Rice, who held largely fruitless talks with Israeli PM Ehud Olmert, and Abbas, said she would not judge a unity government until it was formed, a process likely to take at least a month.