DAMASCUS: Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal on Thursday welcomed what he said was a change of US policy towards his Islamist movement which controls the Gaza Strip and said he looked forward to renewed Palestinian unity talks later this week.
We hail the new line from Barack Obama towards Hamas. It is the first step towards direct talks without preconditions, Meshaal said from his base in the Syrian capital Damascus.
Meshaal said Hamas would work swiftly to end the rifts in Palestinian ranks and achieve national reconciliation through talks being brokered by Egypt.
To this end, a delegation will travel to Cairo in the next two days to tackle the obstacles, Meshaal added.
Egyptian mediators have set a July 7 target date for a deal to reconcile Hamas and the West Bank-based Palestinian leadership of president Mahmoud Abbas after months of faltering negotiations to mend the rift sparked by the Islamists 2007 seizure of Gaza.
Western aid for the reconstruction of Gaza after Israel s devastating offensive at the turn of the year is dependent on the outcome of the talks.
Despite its upset 2006 victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections, both the European Union and the United States refuse to have any dealings with Hamas until it renounces violence and recognizes Israel and past peace deals.
In recent days Hamas officials have signaled that they may be ready to accept a Palestinian state limited to the territories seized in the 1967 Middle East war despite a commitment in the movement s charter to regaining the whole of historic Palestine.
But Meshaal warned that the Islamists wanted concrete gains for the Palestinians.
Hamas has no illusions about the new policy… we want change on the ground that will bring about an end to the occupation, he said.
He hit out at the new right-leaning Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that the conditions it had placed on the Palestinians promised statehood were unacceptable.
We reject the position taken by Netanyahu… on east Jerusalem, settlement activity, the right of return of Palestinian refugees and his vision of a demilitarized Palestinian state deprived of sovereignty over its land, air space and territorial waters, Meshaal said.
We are opposed to Israel being a Jewish state … because that would amount to the denial of the rights of the six million Palestinain refugees, Meshaal added, slamming the position of the new Israeli government as fascist .
No leader has the right to compromise on the right of return. We reject the permanent resettlement of Palestinians abroad, for instance in Jordan, he said. -AFP
