Hamas hopes U.S. will soften line on unity deal
Source: Reuters
By Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Hamas said on Tuesday it still hoped Washington would soften its position towards a Palestinian unity government following talks U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. "The American position remains unsettled -- once threatening a boycott and once saying they would wait and see," said Ghazi Hamad, a Palestinian government spokesman. "Maybe they will have a clearer position after the government is announced and we hope it would be a more logical and flexible position." Rice held a trilateral meeting on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah faction signed a power-sharing pact with the Islamist Hamas group in Mecca, Saudi Arabia earlier this month. Olmert said after the talks that Israel and the United States agreed to boycott the Palestinian government, which has yet to be formed, unless it renounced violence, recognised Israel and accepted existing interim peace accords. Rice did not address the issue in her brief public remarks following a session that ended only with a pledge to meet again, but noted it was the position of the "Quartet" of Middle East mediators that the terms must be met. Hamas has said it would never recognise Israel. The Mecca deal, which calmed weeks of Hamas-Fatah fighting that killed more than 90 people, contained a vague promise to "respect" previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements. Abbas followed up the three-way talks by embarking on a visit to European and Arab countries to seek support for the unity deal and resumption of direct aid to the Palestinian Authority that Western donors cut off after Hamas came to power in an election a year ago, aides said. "The president ... will explain the (unity) agreement to world leaders and try to put an end to the old position of siege and isolation," said Tawfiq Abu Khoussa, a Fatah spokesman. The Quartet, composed of the United States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations, is set to meet in Berlin on Wednesday to discuss the Rice-Abbas-Olmert meeting and how to deal with a new Palestinian coalition. "We really expect and hope that the Quartet will take a more flexible position," Hamad said. Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, said he expected to announce a new government within three weeks. Fatah, Hamas and other groups have been holding discussions on staffing a 24-member cabinet.
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