'No change towards Israel despite unity deal'

Gaza, Sept 13: Hamas said today its agreement to form a Palestinian unity government should not be seen as a softening in the Islamic group's position towards Israel.

The statement was likely to raise more questions over whether a coalition between the governing militant movement and President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction would satisfy international conditions for restoring aid to the Palestinian Authority.

''The allegations and the rumours that Hamas ceded its constant positions in the framework of the political agenda (of a future unity government) were wrong,'' Hamas said in a press release, reiterating a commitment to armed struggle.

''The agreed political agenda ... did not include either implicit or explicit recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist occupation,'' Hamas said, using its term for Israel, whose destruction it advocates.

Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, agreed on Monday to form a unity government on the basis of a document drafted by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

The prisoners' manifesto, seeming to imply recognition of Israel, mentions a 2002 initiative that calls for Israel to return all territories captured in the 1967 Middle East war, the establishment of a Palestinian state and a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem in exchange for peace.

Palestinians hope the creation of a unity administration will lead to the lifting of a Western aid embargo imposed after Hamas took power in March following a surprising win over Fatah in January elections.

Hamas has also faced widespread strikes by government employees, demanding wages largely unpaid since March. Political analysts said public discontent helped spur the group to seek a partnership with Fatah.

A ''Quartet'' of mediators, the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia -- have said aid to the Palestinian government would resume only after it recognised Israel, renounced violence and abided by existing peace deals.

But some Western diplomats and analysts believe the European Union might settle for less than Washington and reach out to non-Hamas ministers in a new government to get funds flowing.

Israel has said it would not talk to any Palestinian government that does not accept the three conditions laid down by the Quartet.

Officials said it could take two weeks for a new Palestinian government to take shape.

REUTERS

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