Israel's Olmert begins US visit to bolster Abbas

NEW YORK, June 17 (Reuters) Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert began a US visit today saying he considered a new emergency Palestinian government shorn of Islamist Hamas a partner for peace negotiations.

Olmert, who has been looking for a diplomatic breakthrough since the costly Lebanon war, planned to discuss the crisis sparked by Hamas's takeover of Gaza with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and, on Tuesday, with US President George W Bush.

Israel has signaled it would agree to ease sanctions that Western powers imposed on the Palestinian Authority when Hamas, which refuses to recognize the Jewish state, swept to power.

With Abbas having formed a Cabinet of political independents under Western-trained economist Salam Fayyad, Olmert said he saw ''an opportunity that has not existed for a long time.'' ''A government that is not a Hamas government is a partner,'' he told reporters accompanying him to New York.

Israel would explore with Bush how to ''empower the moderates'' after Hamas routed Abbas's secular Fatah in civil war in the Gaza Strip, an Olmert aide said.

Another senior Israeli official spoke of swift ''gestures,'' including the release to Abbas -- who has dissolved his unity government with Hamas -- of a portion of the 700 million dollar in Palestinian tax revenues Israel has been withholding.

But an economic and diplomatic embargo of the Hamas administration in Gaza would remain in place and be tightened in some areas, the official said.

In an interview with The New York Times on Friday, Olmert said Israel would do what it could ''to be helpful and supportive of the Palestinian people in every possible way, including economic cooperation and security cooperation.'' FUNDS Pouring money into the occupied West Bank, where Fatah holds sway, would remove an obstacle delaying another round of talks between Abbas and Olmert on aspects of Palestinian statehood -- a prospect dimmed by Hamas's victory. They last met in April.

Abbas seeks peace with Israel. Hamas has rejected Western demands to recognize the Jewish state and renounce violence.

Looking ahead to Olmert's meeting with Ban, the Olmert aide said they would hold a preliminary discussion on prospects for sending international forces to Gaza to cut off arms smuggling to Hamas and other militants via tunnels under Egypt's border.

But with Hamas in charge and threatening to treat any foreign soldiers as ''occupiers,'' few countries seemed likely to commit troops. Israel has proposed defusing this by turning to Arab and Muslim states as potential peacekeeper contributors.

A senior Israeli official said that an international force was only a ''preliminary idea'' requiring extensive work.

''Egypt doesn't agree that an international force be posted between it and an Arab country,'' the official said in reference to Gaza. He added that Israel would want a foreign force on the Gazan frontier empowered ''to fight terrorist organizations.'' In his talks with Ban and in Washington, Olmert also would speak of the need for continued international pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear program, the official said.

Israel, which is believed to have the West Asia's only nuclear arsenal, fears Iran is trying to produce atomic weapons. Iran says it aims to refine uranium only to the low level required for civilian energy.

In Washington, Olmert will also meet congressional leaders before returning to Israel.

REUTERS SW KP1606