Hamas official: 15,000 PA forces won't return to Gaza anytime soon
Published yesterday (updated) 18/07/2009 21:16
www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=212715

Gaza - Ma'an - Fatah has demanded that 15,000 Palestinian Authority security
forces be permitted to return to the Gaza Strip, Hamas leader Mahmoud
Az-Zahhar said on Friday.

The official rejected the alleged demand during a weekly sermon at the
Al-Qassam Mosque in central Gaza on Friday, saying that Hamas would not
allow the Fatah-backed "death squads" to return to "what has become a
no-man's land."

PA forces were sent out or fled from Gaza when Hamas and its security men
gained control of the Strip following brief but violent clashes throughout
the occupied Palestinian territories during the summer of 2007.

Nevertheless, Az-Zahhar insisted that Hamas has shown "clear flexibility"
over the return of PA forces under the right circumstances, but said it was
impossible to allow them to regain any control in the immediate future.

He added that a delegation of Hamas officials would depart for Cairo on
Friday for a scheduled meeting with Egyptian negotiators on Saturday, which
plans to host both leading Palestinian groups for reconciliation talks aimed
at resolving the two-year internal dispute by a deadline set for 25 July.

"If [Fatah's] response is clear, then Hamas will go ahead and sign the
conciliation agreement; otherwise, Hamas will not waste more of its time in
continuing this dialogue," Az-Zahhar added.

The official insisted that previous talks had failed "due to Fatah's
stubbornness in its positions and conditions, as well as its insistence on
changing the electoral system into a fully proportionate one, in hopes they
would get a majority in the next elections." Az-Zahhar expressed
astonishment toward Fatah's insistence, which he said was "despite that all
countries working in line with that system have realized its failure and
changed over to a normal system."

He also expressed Hamas' wish to achieve Palestinian conciliation sooner
than this summer, but "not on an agreement that would repeat the previous
experience [between the two sides in 2007]," and noted that "Hamas went to
Cairo and had six meetings with Fatah; all have achieved nothing until now."