Last update - 00:00 31/10/2006
Egypt stepping up pressure on Hamas to recognize Israel
By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondent and The Associated Press
Egypt has stepped up pressure on Hamas to recognize Israel and
swap a captured Israel Defense Forces soldier for Palestinian prisoners -
moves Egypt believes could help resolve a deepening political crisis in the West Bank and Gaza, officials said Tuesday.
A delegation of Hamas leaders was in Cairo on Tuesday, where they met with Egyptian leaders who pushed them to form a new Palestinian Cabinet that recognizes Israel, officials close to the negotiations said.
But a top Hamas leader reiterated that his group would not recognize
Israel, and also cast doubt on Israel's readiness to free Palestinians in exchange for IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, abducted by Hamas-linked militants on June 25.
Imad Al-Alami, the group's representative in Syria and former envoy to Iran, met Tuesday with senior Egyptian intelligence officers, but no progress was apparently made, officials said.
"There is nothing new. It was not what was expected, nor what is required," said one official.
As negotiations went underway earlier Tuesday, Hamas indicated that it could be flexible on the phasing of Palestinian prisoners released in a possible prisioner swap for Shalit.
"The moment Shalit is freed or released to a third party, Israel must free a great number of Palestinian prisoners and then the rest can be released in a short time afterwards upon strict and accepted guarantees," he said.
"Freed prisoners must include those who spent long terms in jail ... Israel will not be left alone to decide who would be freed," he added.
Izzat al-Rishq also said that the arrival of exiled Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal in Cairo for negotiations on a prisoner swap and on a Palestinian unity government would depend on the progress of the talks.
Al-Alami and lawmaker Mushir al-Masri, the spokesman for Hamas in the Gaza Strip, were heading the delegation that landed late Monday in Cairo.
The delegates were to meet with Egyptian chief of intelligence Omar Suleiman to talk about the soldier and the formation of a unity government, said Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy leader of Hamas' political bureau in Syria.
Abu Marzouk said Monday that Meshal, who lives in exile in Syria, would not be attending the talks.
Some progress has been made regarding the possible exchange Shalit for Palestinians held in Israeli jails, Abu Marzouk said, but there are problems hindering the deal. They include the timing, as well as the names and numbers of Palestinian prisoners to be released, he said.
Shalit was captured in a June 25 cross-border raid on his IDF base, and is believed to be held in Gaza. His abduction sparked an IDF offensive there that has killed more than 200 Palestinians.
In Jerusalem on Monday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said no prisoners would be released as long as Shalit remained in captivity.
Olmert was talking to lawmakers about efforts to set a meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who has demanded that Israel commit itself to a prisoner release as a condition for such a meeting.
"I can't release prisoners so long as Gilad Shalit is captured," Olmert said, according to lawmakers.
In Damascus, Abu Marzouk said prisoner swap talks were now centering on the release in three stages of 1,400 Palestinian prisoners in Israel, including 400 children and women, in exchange for Shalit.
Egypt has been attempting to negotiate his release, and Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, visiting Cairo earlier this month, said his government accepted Egypt's conditions for a prisoner swap but blamed Meshal for the deal's collapse.
Abu Marzouk rejected charges that Hamas has obstructed a prisoner swap with Israel in the past. He also accused the moderate Fatah party of blocking attempts to form a Palestinian national unity government, calling the Palestinian Authority's recognition of Israel "a historic blunder" which the ruling Hamas would never repeat.