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European Council

The position certainly has not changed at all. All sorts of words are used in respect of the national unity Government, but they all amount to the same thing: that such a Government must be in line with the Quartet principles, which means that they must accept the right of Israel to exist, and that the way to pursue a settlement is through negotiation, not violence. That will remain our position. The issue for us is whether, in this national unity Government, it is possible to get Hamas to understand that we cannot support people who attempt to achieve their aims through terrorism and that we cannot, in particular, take forward negotiations on two states if Hamas is saying that one of those states does not have the right to exist. That is our position, it has been our position, and it will remain so.