Asked if there was any plan or program that was mentioned here in the talks between President Chirac and the Saudis counterparts concerning bringing Hamas to the negotiations, or any other solution to the situation, Prince Saud said 'of course, it was discussed thoroughly, because of the great interest of both countries in following up the oldest conflict in the world now, and the effort to see through to a solution is one of the primary concerns of both leaders. What has happened: there was an election. An election that was urged on the Palestinians by the international community we have told everybody that elections are unpredictable. So, if you want predictable thing, you don't hold elections. But elections were held, and certainly they have been open and honest elections they have resulted in Hamas winning a sound victory in these elections. Our counsel has always been to give the opportunity to the new government to express itself, to study its options and decide on what approach to take, before making judgments or prejudging what we are going to say, or out guessing what we are going to do. Everybody knows that governments when they are formed after elections don't necessarily hold to what they have said during the election time. What is important to hear is what they say after becoming a government, and they are going to do we are not going to prejudge, neither us nor France. This is what we have decided. We will wait and see what Hamas does. We think if they express the desires of the Palestinian people, this is the most that we can hope. There is no magiclantern that can give us insight on what is going to happen. But we think that as a government, they will act with responsibility to represent the issues of the Palestinian people. We haven't seen them of course, but there is a visit by Hamas to Saudi Arabia in the next few days. --more 14 11 Local Time 11 11 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/337324