RAMALLAH, 8 June 2003 — Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is to meet with all Palestinian factions this week following his pledge to end the armed intifada, a minister said yesterday.
“Talks will be resumed this week and we will remove the reason that stopped the dialogue,” Culture Minister Ziad Abu Amr told AFP following a Cabinet meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
“I think that after Abu Mazen (Abbas) has met the Parliament and given the press conference on Monday, the position will be clear and we can resume dialogue where it stopped,” said Abu Amr, who is in charge of contacts with Palestinian factions.
It had been previously announced the meetings would be held within two days.
However, Hamas earlier ruled out any new talks with Abbas unless he renounced his statements from a Middle East peace summit with US President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the Jordanian Red Sea resort of Aqaba on Wednesday.
Hamas first announced its breaking off talks with Abbas on Friday, saying it was disgusted by his statements, which included a pledge to end the armed uprising and an expression of sympathy for Jewish suffering.
The group, which has launched numerous attacks against Israel, also recoiled at Abbas’ omission of the plight of Palestinian refugees, which is a cornerstone of Palestinian nationalist ideology.
Information Minister Nabil Amr also said after the Cabinet meeting that Abbas wanted to hold talks with all the Palestinian factions, including Hamas.
“Palestinian national dialogue is a strategic decision and we will continue dialogue with all the Palestinian factions,” Nabil Amr told reporters.
“Stopping this dialogue will lead to a bad situation and will not help in solving our problems,” he said.
Amr said he was optimistic talks would take place with Hamas at some point.
“It is necessary to meet Hamas. I am optimistic that we will reopen dialogue with Hamas,” he said. The minister defended Abbas’ Aqaba speech by saying it was only meant to be an expression of the Palestinian commitment to the Middle East road map.
“I want to confirm that Abu Mazen’s speech in Aqaba only spoke about the Palestinian commitment to begin implementing the road map,” he said, adding “it was not a final agreement or solution.”
It did not mean the Palestinian Authority had changed its positions on key issues. “We stress the Palestinian position on the refugees and about Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state,” Amr said.
