Haniyeh: “Hamas accepted the Yemeni Initiative as an agenda for talks”

Sunday March 23, 2008 05:15 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

The deposed Palestinian Prime Minister of Hamas movement, Ismail Haniyeh, stated on Saturday that he hopes that the current internal Palestinian talks in Yemen would achieve successful outcomes, and added that Hamas accepted the Yemeni initiative as an agenda for talks but not as a condition that must be implemented.

Ismail Haniyya

Meanwhile, Fatah movement headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, said that it accepted the initiative, while the Hamas delegation, headed by Mousa Abu Marzouq, said that Hamas needs more time to discuss the initiative and conduct some modifications to it.

Haniyeh's statements came during a visit to the house of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, marking the fourth anniversary of his assassination. The quadriplegic, Wheelchair-bound, Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, was assassinated four years ago by a missile fired by the Israeli air force at him as he was heading to a local mosque in Gaza for dawn prayers.

Commenting on the meeting between Hamas and the Islamic Jihad at the Rafah Border Terminal, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, Haniyeh stated that the meeting came upon a request from Egypt in order to discuss the results of the Egyptian-American-Israeli talks over efforts to achieve truce.

Haniyeh said that any truce should be bilateral and should be coherent with lifting the siege over the Gaza Strip, and reforming the Palestinians internal relations based on the unity of the land and the people.

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