Deposed Prime Minister of Hamas administration in Gaza Ismail Haneya on Friday ruled out the resumption of inter-dialogue with rival Fatah party and the holding of general elections on time.
Haneya told prayers in a mosque in the southern Gaza town of Rafah that as long as a siege is imposed on Gaza, while arrests against his West Bank movement's members are going on, I doubt that the dialogue would resume.
At the end of the last round of dialogue held in Cairo on June 28, mediator Egypt informed Fatah and Hamas negotiators that the last round of dialogue to sign a reconciliation deal will be held on August 25.
Tension between the two groups elevated after Hamas banned the travel of 400 Gaza Fatah members to join their movement's sixth general assembly that will be held in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on August 4.
Hamas clearly announced that Gaza Fatah members can't leave unless the security forces of President Mahmoud Abbas, who is also Fatah party chief, frees more than 900 Hamas activists imprisoned in West Bank jails. Hamas security forces have confiscated the passports and IDs of the Gaza Fatah members.
"We said that there are doubts that the national dialogue would reach its goals, and there are even doubts that Hamas negotiators would go to the upcoming round of dialogue if political arrests did not completely stop in the West Bank," said Haneya.
He said that after the recent Fatah leaders' threat to detain Hamas leadership in the West Bank, "I doubt that the upcoming round of dialogue would be basically held."
Haneya also stressed that Hamas rejects the continuation of dialogue amid "tightening the siege on the Gaza Strip as well as preventing the reconstruction of Gaza."
"We were informed by several European figures that the authority in Ramallah is the one who works on keeping the tight siege imposed on the Gaza Strip," Haneya revealed to the prayers.
Hamas movement, which won the Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006, seized control of the Gaza Strip by force in June 2007, and routed President Abbas security forces.
(Xinhua News Agency July 31, 2009)
