GAZA CITY: The head of the Hamas government in Gaza urged Arab nations not to attend a US-hosted Mideast conference in the fall, saying in an interview published Saturday that he didn t expect the gathering to produce any results.
We are going to appeal directly to the Arab brothers, especially the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and will ask them to reconsider any decision to participate in this conference, said Ismail Haniyeh, who serves as prime minister in the Hamas government in Gaza.
The Palestinians did not build much hope on the previous Oslo agreements, Haniyeh told the pro-Hamas newspaper Palestine, referring to the interim peace deals with Israel, reached in the mid-1990s.
Therefore, we are not going to build any hopes on the results of this conference, he said.
The Mideast conference is to take place sometime in November or early December, and is to endorse a joint statement of principles being drafted by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators. The statement would guide future peace negotiations.
