BRUSSELS - The North Atlantic Treaty Organization will send an envoy to establish closer contacts with the Palestinian Authority, an official at the organization said Wednesday.
"A representative from NATO will go meet officials of the Palestinian Authority at a time yet to be determined but that decision has been taken", the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The decision has been warmly received by Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas in a letter addressed to NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, another official said.
It is the fruit of a chance encounter between de Hoop Scheffer and Palestinian negotiations minister Saeb Erakat on the sidelines of a terrorism conference in Madrid last month to commemorate the train bombings in that city one year before.
"The PA expressed the wish to open a channel of communication with the Alliance ... (and) the allies expressed their support for exploratory contacts between NATO and the Palestinian Authority", the official said.
Israel had been notified, he added.
The talks were only "initial contacts" and "should not be seen as laying the ground work for anything in the future", the official stressed.
The NATO envoy, who has yet to be designated, would be a high-level official and would meet with Erakat as well as the Palestinian foreign minister.
Having extended into Eastern Europe in recent years, the military alliance is now seeking to set up closer ties in the Middle East, North Africa and the Persian Gulf.
The secretary general has made visits recently to Algeria, Jordan and Morocco and is to go to Egypt in the second half of the year. He was also last February the first ever NATO secretary general to visit Israel.
04/06/2005 16:37 GMT