Mishaal: Hamas to inform German mediator of its response within days

PIC

[ 11/01/2010 - 10:49 AM ]

DOHA, (PIC)-- Khaled Mishaal, the political bureau chairman of Hamas, has said that his Movement would relay its final response to the German mediator on the prisoners exchange deal within days.

He told a press conference in Doha on Sunday night that his Movement did not demand a signing ceremony for the national reconciliation agreement in any other place rather than Cairo.

Mishaal explained, however, that the reconciliation agreement hit a dead-end because of the changes Egypt had introduced on the proposals without consulting Hamas and other factions.

He charged the US with blocking efforts to conclude a national agreement, adding that Washington clearly told Cairo and Mahmoud Abbas, the PA chief whose term in office had expired a year ago, that if the reconciliation agreement was signed then it would cut off financial assistance to the PA.

The Hamas leader said that Abbas refused to meet him despite attempts by Syria and other Arab countries to bring them together in a summit meeting.

For his part, Osama Hamdan, one of Hamas's prominent leaders, said on Sunday that the core of difference in the national reconciliation issue was the political program.

He told a seminar held in Beirut on Sunday in the presence of a number of experts and researchers in the Arab-Israeli conflict that the Palestinian regime was designed to cope with a political settlement that leads to liquidating the Palestine cause.

He said that Hamas, as a major component of the Palestinian political scene, refused such a settlement. Thus there should be an overall umbrella accepted by all in Palestine that would serve as the cornerstone for national unity and statehood, Hamdan added.

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