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Hamas PM lists terms for recognizing Israel
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-02-26 11:16
The Palestinian prime minister-designate said Hamas is "ready to recognize"
Israel if it gives the Palestinian people their full rights and a state in lands
occupied since 1967, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Hamas leader and
the Palestinian Authority's next Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh attends a
news conference in Gaza February 25, 2006.
[Reuters] |
Hamas chose Ismail Haniyeh, a 43-year-old Gazan viewed by many Palestinians
as a pragmatist, as the new prime minister after sweeping the elections on
January 25. The group hopes to complete forming a Palestinian government within
two weeks.
"If Israel declares that it will give the Palestinian people a state and give
them back all their rights, then we are ready to recognize them," Haniyeh told
The Washington Post in an interview posted on its Web site on Saturday.
Haniyeh did not say what form the recognition would take.
Haniyeh also said Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction, was
ready to consider talks with Israel if the Jewish state withdrew from the West
Bank and East Jerusalem and recognized the "right of return" for Palestinian
refugees who fled in the 1948 war and their descendants.
David Makovsky, director of the Project on the Middle East Peace Process at
the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said, "This interview is filled
with contradictions, including putting old wine in new bottles.
"He is hinting that they might be reasonable if Israel does everything and
they do nothing, while in Arabic they say they will not recognize even an inch
of Tel Aviv," Makovsky told Reuters in a telephone interview.
A representative at the U.S. State Department did not immediately return a
call seeking official U.S. reaction to Haniyeh's comments.
Hamas has rejected talks with the Jewish state as a waste of time, but it has
said lately it could respect some aspects of interim peace deals from the 1990s
that it had rejected outright in the past.
"Let Israel say it will recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders,
release the prisoners and recognize the rights of the refugees to return to
Israel. Hamas will have a position if this occurs," Haniyeh said.
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