Ismail Haneya, a senior Hamas leader and the deposed Palestinian prime minister, on Saturday set terms for the resumption of dialogue with President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah movement.

 

"Stopping all security coordination and cooperation with the occupation forces (Israel) is a condition to resume the dialogue," Haneya told a crowd of pilgrims who had recently returned to Gaza from Saudi Arabia.

 

The dialogue between Haneya's Hamas and Abbas' Fatah had collapsed in June last year after Hamas militants overran Fatah's security forces and took control of the Gaza Strip.

 

"It is unreasonable that two Hamas senior leaders got arrested by Israel last week, two days after they were detained by Abbas' security forces," Haneya said while voicing his anger.

 

"In order to prepare a good atmosphere for any coming dialogue, such security coordination with the occupation forces must stop," said Haneya.

 

It was unusual for Hamas to set a condition to resume dialogue with Abbas' Fatah movement. Earlier, Hamas had always said any dialogue between Hamas and Fatah should be "unconditioned."

 

Right after Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip, Abbas had not only fired the Hamas-led coalition government, also severed all contacts with Hamas. As a result, the national dialogue between rival Hamas and Fatah has since collapsed.

 

Abbas had conditioned that any resumption of dialogue with Hamas has to be preceded by Hamas regret over taking over Gaza, and should bring the situation back to what it was before mid-June last year. Hamas refuses Abbas' conditions.

 

Also on Saturday, Haneya slammed U.S. President George W. Bush's vision for a future Palestinian state.

 

"Bush wants a Jewish state to annul the refugees' right of return, to keep Jerusalem under the grip of Israel, and to see (Israeli) settlements remaining on the West Bank land," Haneya said.

 

"We tell Bush that he will go one day and the fair Palestinian cause will stay ... Bush will go one day, where Jerusalem and the Palestinian people will stay," he added.

 

Bush, who visited Israel and the Palestinian West Bank during Jan. 9-11, on Thursday summarized his talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders and gave his suggestions to solve the thorniest issues on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

 

Over the Palestinian refugee issue, Bush proposed "new international mechanisms" to solve it.

 

"I believe we need to look to the establishment of a Palestinian state and new international mechanisms including compensation to resolve the refugee issue," said Bush.

 

But Bush neither elaborated over these mechanisms, nor mentioned the return right of those Palestinian refugees.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 13, 2008)