GAZA: Hamas seeks reconciliation talks with Fatah, hints at giving up Gaza

Hamas seeks reconciliation talks with Fatah, hints at giving up Gaza. Hamas said on Wednesday (October 10), that it would hold reconciliation talks with the Fatah faction of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and hinted it may be ready to cede control of the Gaza Strip, which it seized in June. Abbas, who is pursuing a peace deal with Israel, has ruled out dialogue with Islamist Hamas unless it submits anew to his authority and gives up Gaza. Israel and the West want Hamas shunned until it accepts coexistence with the Jewish state. "What the Prime minister confirmed, Mr Ismail Haniyeh, is within the context of what Hamas presents in a very clear way, that there are efforts from balanced Arab countries in the region towards hosting both delegations, Hamas and Fatah Factions, so that the Palestinian - Palestinian negotiations be launched for the sake of ending internal conflict. And the serious return for the continuation of building the Palestinian national project." Fawzi Barhoum told reuters during an interview at his residence in Gaza. "Everyone believes that there is no way out of this Palestinian internal problem, without the return to a serious dialogue. We believe that the Fatah faction have started to understand this Palestinian National request and started to flow with the general Palestinian and Arab view towards the return to dialogue with Hamas." added Barhoum. "Our administration in Gaza is temporary," Ismail Haniyeh said in an urgent bulletin posted on a pro-Hamas Web site. He added the talks would be held after Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim festival thatthe holy month of Ramadan and falls on Friday or Saturday. An official involved in Hamas-Fatah mediation but affiliated with neither group confirmed that there would be a meeting as early as next week, and said Cairo was the likely venue. But a senior Abbas aide, Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, denied that talks had been set and accused Hamas, which has been vying with Fatah for Palestinian support since the factions fought a brief civil war in June, of trying to mislead the public. Abbas has preconditioned factional talks on Hamas relinquishing the Fatah-linked security compound its forces overran. A senior Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, said such a gesture could only come as a result of dialogue being under way. Israel, whose prime minister, Ehud Olmert, will attend a U.S.-sponsored conference on Palestinian statehood with Abbas next month, opposes reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. Haniyeh's statement came hours after Abbas, apparently staking out a position ahead of the November conference, said a future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza must cover the same amount of land as Israel seized there 40 years ago. Abbas also raised the possibility of amending the pre-1967 lines, as long as Palestinians ended up controlling territory equal to what Israeli forces captured in a war that year. "All we want is a state on the 1967 borders, meaning the size of the West Bank and Gaza Strip," Abbas told Palestine Television. "As for border modification, this is mentioned in Resolution 242," Abbas said, referring to a 1967 U.N. Security Council document that serves as a basis for Israeli-Palestinian land-for-peace deals. "It will be an equal modification." All Israeli governments since the 1967 conflict have ruled out a complete pullback to pre-war boundaries, citing security concerns and the Jewish state's claim to all of Jerusalem as its capital. Palestinians want the eastern part of the holy city, which Israel annexed, as capital of their future state. The U.S. government has backed the idea of a small territorial exchange between Israel and a future Palestine so that Palestinians would be compensated for Jewish settlement blocs that would remain under Israeli control in any peace deal. Negotiations on core issues such as the borders of a Palestinian state and the future of Jerusalem and millions of Palestinian refugees broke down in 2001 amid surging violence.

ITN Source | October 11, 2007

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