Hamas says open to Yemen initiative on Fatah
Yahoo News
19 Marzo 2008
SANAA (Reuters) - A top Hamas official said his group was ready to accept a Yemeni bid for reconciliation with Fatah, which voiced willingness to start a national dialogue when its Islamist rival agrees to the terms of Yemen's initiative.
"The visit is to meet (Yemeni) President Ali Abdullah Saleh ... and inform him of the movement's acceptance of the Yemeni initiative," Hamas deputy politburo chief Moussa Abu Marzouk told Al Jazeera television upon his arrival in Sanaa.
Abu Marzouk did not say if that meant that the group accepted relinquishing its control over the Gaza strip, but Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters in Gaza that the group would discuss the points of the Yemeni initiative.
The initiative calls for the situation in Gaza to return to the way it was before Hamas seized control of the territory and for early Palestinian elections to be held, conditions endorsed by Abbas and so far rejected by Hamas.
"We accept to discuss all the points stated in the Yemeni initiative openly on the dialogue table," Abu Zuhri said. "The Yemeni initiative did not talk about preconditions but it listed items or points for dialogue and we're willing to discuss them."
Officials from President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah group said they were ready to begin a national dialogue if Hamas accepts the terms of Yemen's proposal.
Nimmer Hammad, an aide to Abbas, said it was too early to say when any such talks could start. "If they accepted the Yemeni initiative as is, then yes, talks with Hamas can resume."
Asked when Hammad said: "Right now, this is premature."
SEPARATE MEETINGS
Delegations from the two factions will meet separately with Saleh but a breakthrough seems unlikely in the absence of Abbas and Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, who was initially expected to lead the Islamist group's delegation.
Hamas Islamists routed Fatah forces to seize control of the Gaza Strip in June. After the takeover, Abbas dismissed a Hamas-led government and appointed a new Western-backed cabinet in the occupied West Bank.
"If the brothers in Hamas accept the Yemeni initiative completely in all its clauses, we are ready to immediately begin a Palestinian national dialogue, not just between Fatah and Hamas but all the national factions," senior Abbas aide Azzam al-Ahmed told reporters in Yemen.
"The dispute is not between Fatah and Hamas ... it is between all the national action factions ... and Hamas. Hamas has been singled out ... from the start when it used armed force."
The initiative also calls for a resumption of dialogue in line with a reconciliation agreement the factions reached in the Saudi Muslim holy city of Mecca in 2007, for the creation of a unity government and for security forces to be rebuilt on a national rather than a factional basis.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said in Gaza on Monday that Hamas would only be willing to discuss reconciliation with Fatah in a "non-conditional dialogue."
(Writing by Lin Noueihed and Inal Ersan; additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah; editing by Sami Aboudi)
Source > Yahoo News
