Haniyah is willing to negotiate with Abbas and Egypt about a deal to run Rafah crossing

Thursday January 24, 2008 14:33 by Ghassan Bannoura - IMEMC News ghassanb at imemc dot org
The Hamas leader and deposed prime minister Isma'el Haniyah stated on Thursday he is willing to negotiate a deal to run the Rafah border crossing with the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and the Egyptian government.

Haniyah's statement came during an interview with the Qatari based aljazeera TV Arabic service. "Running things alone is an unsuccessful policy" Haniyah told aljazeera TV.

The Hamas movement won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, shortly after Hamas formed a national unity government headed by Haniyah, in July 2007 after several months of bloody internal infighting with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Fatah party; Hamas took total control of Gaza.

Abbas fired Haniyah's government and appointed Salam Fayyad and his government that was based in the West Bank while the Hamas government still controls the Gaza Strip.

Responding to Haniyah's statement on Thursday, Nimier Hamad, one of the Palestinian President advisors, said that Hamas first must admit its failure of running the Gaza Strip and ask the Palestinian President to send his forces to run Rafah crossing.

Haniya: The government is ready to hold urgent talks with Egypt regarding Rafah

[ 24/01/2008 - 01:04 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)--

Ismail Haniya, the premier of the PA caretaker government, announced Wednesday his government's readiness to hold urgent talks with the PA in Ramallah and Egyptian officials in Cairo in order to agree on the management of the Rafah border crossing and to make the necessary arrangements in this regard.
In a televised address and in an interview with Al-Jazeera satellite channel, Haniya also denied that his government seeks to exclusively run the Rafah terminal and the other Gaza crossings.
The premier stated that what has happened and is happening in the Gaza Strip is a message that the situation in the Gaza Strip reached high rate of tension, saying that the admission of small quantities of fuel is an unacceptable partial step and the Palestinians demands that the siege must be lifted completely.
The premier pointed out that his government has not received any response yet from the Egyptian side regarding its proposal, but he said that the Egyptian leadership promised to study the proposal before replying.
The premier added that his government is ready to make all necessary arrangements with the officials in Egypt in order to follow up the issue of the Rafah crossing for the sake of the common interests of both countries.
In response to the PA accusations that the resistance rockets is the reason for the siege and aggression against Gaza, the premier explained that the firing of rockets is a defensive means coming in the framework of self-defense, pointing out that the Palestinian resistance factions called more than once for a mutual, simultaneous and inclusive calm, but the Israeli occupation every time insists on continuing its killings and incursions in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The premier confirmed his rejection of putting conditions for lifting the siege, highlighting that waiving national constants is more painful and harsher than the suffocating siege imposed on the Palestinian people.
For his part, Khaled Mesha'al, the head of Hamas political bureau, called for putting the borders between Egypt and Gaza under the supervision of Egyptians and Palestinians only and ignoring any previous agreements detracting from the sovereignty of the two countries.
Mesha'al underscored that Egypt did not sign the agreement in 2006 regarding the management of the Rafah crossing; thus, it is not bound by it, adding that Hamas is ready to cooperate with Egypt and the PA leadership to regulate the borders between Egypt and Gaza.
In a statement received by the PIC, Taher Nunu, the spokesman for the caretaker government, stated that the Palestinian people demand that siege be fully broken and the Rafah crossing be normally opened before the movement of citizens and goods from and into the Gaza Strip via the established legal procedures.
Nunu hailed the Egyptian government's role in understanding the essential needs of Gaza citizens and in dealing positively with them especially the position of the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

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