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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Hamas says not interested in renewing Shalit talks |
| 2008-08-12 |
| Hamas is not interested in renewing talks to free abducted soldier Gilad Shalit, a senior Hamas official said Monday. The official said that as long as Israel fails to completely lift the siege on the Gaza Strip and to remove obstacles to the free transfer of goods between Israel and Gaza, Hamas would not enter into new talks. Israeli defense sources Monday confirmed that Hamas was toughening its stance and had suspended talks on Shalit's release, infuriating Egypt and causing it tension with Hamas. Chief Israeli negotiator Ofer Dekel has visited Cairo over the past two weeks. A Hamas delegation also visited the Egyptian capital recently and said it would not renew the talks. Hamas criticized the Egyptians, saying Cairo was unable to bring about the renewal of the negotiations at this stage. Egypt is linking the opening of the Rafah border crossing with Shalit's release, while Hamas refuses to agree to any such condition, said the Hamas official. Advertisement There are deep differences in opinion between Egypt and Hamas on Shalit's release, the London newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported. It said paper, senior Hamas officials blame the Egyptians for dragging out everything connected to the negotiations over Shalit, and some Hamas officials are even demanding that Germany replace Egypt as mediator in the talks. Hamas is accusing the Egyptians of taking Fatah's side in the crisis between Hamas and Fatah, blaming only Hamas for the recent fighting between the two organizations' militant factions in Gaza. |
| Posted by:Fred |