Special report: Hamas-led cabinet takes office

    PARIS, April 28 (Xinhua) -- French President Jacques Chirac told Palestine's visiting leader Mahmoud Abbas on Friday that he would propose to set up a special account run by the World Bank to pay the 160,000 Palestinian civil servants their salaries, his office said.

French President Jacques Chirac (L) talks with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas April 28 upon his arrival at the Elysee Palace in Paris. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

    Chirac had talks with Abbas, whose visit to France was the last leg of a one-week tour that took him to Finland, Norway and Turkey, the purpose of which was to lobby for the resumption of western aid to the Palestinians.

    Chirac would make his proposal at the meeting of the International Quartet (United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia) on May 9, said Chirac's spokesman Jerome Bonnafont, who noted that one of the main topics would be the aid issue.

    Chirac said "France would propose to its European and international partners... that they reflect very rapidly on a mechanism to allow the resumption of aid," according to the spokesman.

    As to the sensitive issue of the 160,000 Palestinian public servants' payments, Chirac said "We could study the urgent creation of an escrow account managed for example by the World Bank which could take in the aid funds intended to pay the salaries," said Bonnafont, adding that "direct aid to the service of the presidency of the Palestinian Authority would be increased".

    "Concerning the problem of aid to the Palestinians, [specifically] humanitarian and technical aid -- France believes that this aid should be maintained for human and political reasons, and it will argue for its maintenance in the international community and notably in the European Union," Chirac said in a brief statement to the press before his talks with Abbas.

    The European Union, with its 650-million-dollar donation is the main contributor to the international aid pool, totaling 1.3 billion dollars, with the United States contributing 300 million dollars, Japan (100 million dollars), and the rest being financed by Arabic countries (250 million dollars).

    France, besides its contribution through the EU, also provides additional aid of 25 million euros (32.5 million dollars). Enditem