"Talk of a national unity government is not serious now," Maher Miqdad said, more than two weeks after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya agreed on a policy outline for the incoming government.
Talks have been flung into limbo over Hamas' refusal to soften its stance by unequivocally agreeing that the future government recognize Israel and past agreements signed between the Palestinians and the Jewish state.
"I cannot say that there has been progress in any sense," Abbas admitted to reporters on a visit to the Qatari capital.
Back in Gaza, Miqdad charged that Hamas had "reneged" on the agreement reached between Abbas and Haniya September 11 over a platform for a unity cabinet to replace the Hamas-led administration battling international boycott.
He said that talks between Fatah MP Rawhi Fattuh, who was sent by Abbas as a special envoy to the Gaza Strip to meet Hamas leaders, did "not reach common points."
"Hamas is now asking that a number of points, such as the Arab initiative, be changed, which has brought matters back [to] square one," he said.
Under a proposal adopted by the Arab League in 2002, the Arab world would normalize relations with Israel in exchange for a withdrawal from Arab land occupied since 1967 and a negotiated solution to the Palestinian refugee issue.
The international community insists that any future Palestinian government recognize Israel, renounce violence, and abide by past peace agreements before lifting a six-month boycott slapped on the Hamas-led cabinet.
Khalil Al Hiyyeh, the head of Hamas' negotiating team, conceded that there was a persistent "crisis" in efforts to stitch together a new government. "There is a continuing internal crisis over forming the national unity government," he said.
Hamas "informed Fattuh of its commitment to forming a national unity government and to the outlines agreed by Abu Mazen [Abbas] and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, with the exception of differences over the Arab peace initiative," said Hiyyeh, also head of the Hamas parliamentary block.
But he called for more negotiations to solve the impasse and said that there was still hope that the talks would succeed. "With dialogue maybe we can get past this," he said.
Abbas, who believes that a unity cabinet could end the Palestinian fiscal-political crisis, assured the UN General Assembly this month that any future Palestinian government would recognize Israel.
In Doha, he said that any plans to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert required sufficient preparation after the two leaders have repeatedly pledged to want dialogue despite failing to set publicly a date for talks.
"We have said no preconditions to such a meeting. But we absolutely must prepare it well ... We want a well-studied meeting and not a public relations encounter."
Olmert said Thursday that he hoped to meet Abbas "within the coming days" and the he was "exerting great effort in order to start a dialogue."
© 2006 Agence France-Presse
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