Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haneya makes a speech in Gaza City yesterday. Haneya rejected President Mahmoud Abbas' call for early elections as unconstitutional.  -Xinhua/AFP

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haneya of the ruling Hamas movement yesterday delivered a speech, rejecting President Mahmoud Abbas' call for early elections as unconstitutional.

"Unfortunately, President Abbas threw a bomb into the clam water. This call for holding early elections is contradicting and unconstitutional and it would bring us 10 years back instead," Haneya said.

He said that he did not make the address in response to Abbas' Saturday speech, in which Abbas called for holding early presidential and legislative elections in the Palestinian territories in order to end political and economic crises, instead, he would only clarify some points in Abbas' speech.

The most important point is that results of elections must be respected, said Haneya, referring to the January parliamentary elections which brought Hamas to power.

Haneya also appealed to the Palestinian people, especially supporters of Hamas and Abbas' Fatah, who have been fighting since Abbas issued his call, to refrain from confrontations.

"I ask Hamas and Fatah to release kidnapped people immediately," Haneya said, while urging his interior minister to meet with security chiefs close to Abbas' Fatah to defuse tension.

Calling on the people to maintain unity and end all forms of armed confrontation, Haneya said that dialogue was the only solution to the current crisis.

He clarified that the Hamas-led government was supporting the formation of a unity government capable of coping with an international siege imposed on the Hamas-led government, and that Hamas has made many concessions to let unity government talks continue.

Haneya accused Abbas and his aides of being responsible for the failure of the talks, saying "every time we agreed to start the formation of a national unity government, they (Abbas and his aides) would suddenly change their minds."

Haneya said that the issue of recognizing the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was not the reason that blocked efforts to from a national unity government, saying that his movement did not reject the recognition of the PLO, but called for its reform only.

Haneya also accused the United States of seeking to break down the Hamas-led government, adding that such a policy has failed.

Justifying his recent regional tour, Haneya said that he came back from his tour of several Arab countries with 32 million U.S. dollars, with which he could pay unpaid employees to make their children smiling.

As for Israel, Haneya said that Hamas would not offer a long-term truce with Israel for the time being.

"We need a truce with Israel for 10 or 15 years only when an independent Palestinian state is established on the 1967 borders," he said.