Newspaper reports new Israeli government's guidelines

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported yesterday on the outline of the policy of the future Israeli government chaired by Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak.

The report expected that the government is going to diminish the budget specified for establishing settlements and reduce the building on the current settlements and maintaining them.

The report stated that the government intends to announce that it will respect agreements ratified with the Palestinians if the Palestinian Authority carries out its commitments.

The report added that the government would halt presentations of financial facilities and special budgets to the settlements.