Hamas official: Reconciliation talks totally frozen
Published today (updated) 25/10/2009 22:16
www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=234853

Gaza - Ma'an - Hamas declared on Sunday that reconciliation talks with the
rival Fatah movement are now completely on hold after President Mahmoud
Abbas set a date for elections.

"The speech that President Abbas delivered on Friday has cut many of the
strings.Now there are no contacts and the matter is totally frozen," said
Salah Bardawil, the spokesperson of Hamas' parliamentary contingent.

Bardawil denied media reports that a Hamas delegation would soon travel to
Cairo for further talks with Egyptian mediators on a potential deal with
Fatah.

"Hamas wants reconciliation but not on Abbas' terms - he wants to eliminate
the resistance," the official added.

On Friday Abbas declared new presidential and parliamentary elections for 25
January, a step Hamas says should only have come after a unity deal is
signed.

In June 2007, Abbas dissolved a Hamas-Fatah unity government when the
Islamist group took full control of the Gaza Strip. Hamas won the last round
of parliamentary elections in 2006.