Government spokesman Ghazi Hamad told a news conference that Prime Minister Ismail Haniya had spelt out his position during talks late Monday with the visiting Qatari foreign minister who came to mediate on the deadlock. "We are facing problems, especially on two points, to renounce what's called terrorism and the second about the states," said Hamad, nonetheless denying that talks had reached "failure point."
The ruling Islamist movement is blacklisted as a terrorist outfit by Israel and the West for its decade-long campaign of suicide bombings inside the Jewish state, although Hamas has not claimed any such attack for more than 18 months.
"We are not [a] terrorist organization. We are against terrorism. We are a resistant movement. We are fighting against the occupation," Hamad said, implicitly rejecting a demand from the West that Hamas renounce violence.
He reiterated that Hamas would not recognize Israel - another key demand imposed by Abbas and the West - but said that the government was willing to see a Palestinian state created on land occupied since 1967. "We are not ready to bestow on Israel wanton legality at a time when the occupation in the Palestinian territories continues," Hamad said.
Qatari foreign minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassem Bin Jabr Al Thani held separate talks late Monday with Abbas and Haniya in a bid to break the deadlock in the unity talks and calm deadly tensions between the rival factions. "We are not so far from achieving an agreement on a national unity government. We are continuing talks in order to reach an acceptable compromise and we hope to do it in a very quick time.
"We did not reach a blockade or a failure point," Hamad said, calling talks between Haniya and Sheikh Hamad "constructive."
The Qatari minister, who said that he believes that a unity government can be formed, sought to bring Hamas round to a compromise formula, focusing on the government's respect for international resolutions and past peace agreements, accepting a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders and an end to violence.
Such proposals reflect the views of the Palestinian president who wants a government equipped with a moderate outlook capable of ending the damaging international boycott and replacing the Hamas-led cabinet.
"The gap remains wide between Hamas and the international demands for forming a national unity government, and overcoming those obstacles will be difficult," Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina had said during the night.
Amid the stalled talks, Abbas' entourage warned that the Palestinian leader could dissolve the present government and call early elections if the deadlock remained.
Qatari mediation "is the last political proposition. If there is failure, the solution will be early elections," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
The Hamas government spokesman dismissed the threat of new parliamentary polls. "There is no place to talk about early elections," Hamad told reporters.
Meanwhile, Egypt took a fresh swipe at Hamas after Haniya cast doubt on an Arab peace initiative of 2002, which offered Israel full normalization of relations in return for full withdrawal from Arab territories occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.
Haniya said that the initiative was "problematic, for it entails recognizing Israel, while we have already made it known that we refuse such recognition."
In an interview Tuesday with Egypt's leading state-owned daily Al Ahram, foreign minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said: "There is an Arab initiative of land for peace, which the Palestinian prime minister rejects. So let him find a solution on his own. I say this with no equivocation."
© 2006 Agence France-Presse
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