Secret negotiations aimed at ending the four-year Palestinian intifada against Israel have been taking place between Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas, the frontrunner to succeed Yasser Arafat in next Sunday’s presidential elections, The Sunday Times reported.
Abbas said he hoped the violence would end. “We are adhering and should adhere to the political solution. I think the military solution is impossible from the Palestinian and from the Arab perspective,” he said. Abbas is expected to meet President George W Bush in Washington at the end of this month.
Sa’eed Siyam, one of the prominent leaders of the Hamas Movement in the Gaza Strip, has asserted that his Movement would not support any candidate. Siyam, in a press release distributed Saturday, said that Hamas’ position vis-a-vis the PA presidential elections was stable and did not change. He re-asserted that Hamas would not vote, nor back any nominee to those elections in any way.
