Palestinian govt won't object to Abbas-Israel talks

GAZA, Sep 12 (Reuters) A new Palestinian unity government would not object to President Mahmoud Abbas holding talks with Israel, a senior Hamas official said today.

Ghazi Hamad, also a spokesman for the current Hamas-led administration, said it could take two weeks for the government to be formed following a deal between Abbas and Hamas yesterday that Palestinians hope will end their international isolation.

In a reminder of the hurdles to West Asia peace, Palestinian gunmen clashed with Israeli troops inside the Gaza Strip. Al Jazeera television reported one soldier had been killed. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

''We have no problem in this government that there will be a negotiation with Israel. We have said Abu Mazen can go the political route,'' Hamad said on Israel's Army Radio, speaking in Hebrew and using Abbas's nickname.

The Hamas government had always said the moderate Abbas was free to talk to Israel but that any agreement would need to be ratified by parliament where Hamas has a majority.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said he was ready to meet Abbas, but that top of the agenda would be securing the release of a soldier abducted by gunmen from Gaza on June 25.

Palestinians hope the new unity government will lead to the lifting of Western sanctions imposed when Hamas came to power in March.

But Hamas's insistence on refusing to recognise Israel has raised questions over whether a coalition would satisfy Western demands and drawn scepticism from the Jewish state.

''We are not willing to recognise Israel. This is our country,'' said Hamad.

CONDITIONS The United States and the European Union have said they would work with a unity government if it met conditions laid out by the Quartet of Middle East mediators -- recognising Israel, renouncing violence and accepting past interim peace deals.

''We are looking for a government that accepts the Quartet principles,'' said Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm, spokeswoman for the US consulate in Jerusalem.

The European Union welcomed the unity government agreement but stopped short of saying whether the EU would resume contact with and provide aid to such an administration.

Some Western diplomats and analysts believe the European Union might settle for less than Washington and reach out to non-Hamas ministers in the unity government.

Hamas has said the government's guidelines would be based on a document the Islamists and Abbas agreed in June, which fell short of Western and Israeli demands.

That document stemmed from a manifesto drafted by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails which hinted at recognition of Israel by calling for a Palestinian state on land captured by the Jewish state in the 1967 Middle East war.

In Gaza, the armed wing of Hamas and the Popular Resistance Committees said they carried out an ambush, killing an Israeli officer and wounding several other soldiers.

If confirmed, the death would be the first suffered by the Israeli army in Gaza since launching an offensive after militants abducted the soldier in a cross-border raid in June.

More than 210 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, have been killed in Israeli operations against militants in Gaza since then.

REUTERS SAM BD1518