(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-02-04 08:07

According to Zahar, Egypt agreed to coordinate with Hamas on some border issues and to enable thousands of Palestinians stuck in Egypt to head to third countries for which they have visas or residency permits.

In an interview, Zahar suggested the Egyptians planned to reopen the border after talks with European officials arriving in the region.

"Tomorrow they (the Egyptians) are going to start dialogue with the European people in order to make an end for our sanctions and to allow opening of the gates freely and without preconditions," he said.

The EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, was expected to arrive in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials later Saturday. The international Mideast envoy, Tony Blair, was also planning a trip to the region in coming days to address the border standoff.

Hamas breached the border several days after Israel imposed a complete blockade on Gaza, with Egyptian backing, in response to a rocket barrage from Gaza on Israeli border towns. The blockade tightened the already severely restricted access to the territory that Israel and Egypt imposed after Hamas' Gaza takeover.

Earlier this week, Egypt and Abbas endorsed restoring a 2005 border arrangement in which European monitors were deployed on the Palestinian side to prevent smuggling of weapons and militants, and Israel watched traffic by closed-circuit TV.

Abbas has proposed sending loyalist security forces to the border, to get around the international boycott of Hamas and ensure the crossing is open.

Hamas has said it opposes the 2005 arrangement because it granted Israel a final say over when the Gaza-Egypt border is open. The EU monitors are based in Israel, and Israel in the past frequently asked the monitors to stay away, citing security reasons, in effect shutting down border operations.

Zahar suggested that Hamas was flexible about the extent of its role on the border, but wanted Israel and the EU to be excluded from running it.

"The crossing has to be open because it's an Egytian-Palestinian crossing," he told Al Jazeera. "There have been obstacles ... in the past due to Israeli intervention, and European Union and Israeli pressure. All of these contributed to the siege of the Palestinian people."

The head of the Hamas government in Gaza, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, said he would like to see Gaza's economy cut from Israel, and instead receive fuel and electricity from Egypt.

"We have said from the days of our election campaign that we want to move toward economic disengagement from the Israeli occupation," Haniyeh told the pro-Hamas daily Palestine. "Egypt has a greater ability to meet the needs of Gaza."

Some Israeli officials believe that would be good for Israel.

Israel's Defense Ministry is drafting an official position on the idea, security officials said Sunday. Some in Israel's defense establishment support the idea of allowing Gaza to increase its dependence on Egypt, reducing Israel's responsibility for the impoverished and violent territory, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal internal ministry discussions.

   1 2   

   1 2