Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that his country would be a "genuine partner" of a new Palestinian government and promised to consider releasing hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen tax funds.Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas dissolved a coalition government between his Fatah movement and the militant Islamic Hamas group after Hamas seized control of Gaza this past week. Abbas then appointed Salam Fayyad, a Western-backed economist, to form a new emergency government.
"I think that despite what has happened in the last two days there is ... a genuine opportunity that the moderate forces headed by President Abbas will be able to form a solid government administered by the Palestinians," Olmert said Sunday in a speech to a conference of presidents of major Jewish organizations in New York.
He said such a government would find "a genuine partner in Israel," and indicated that Israel could ease travel restrictions on the West Bank and release Palestinian tax receipts frozen after the Hamas-led government took power last year.
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