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Hamas official denies role in drawing up truce plan with Israel
25/12/2006 17:24

A Palestinian official from the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) denied yesterday any role for him or the Hamas-led government in drawing up a plan for truce with Israel.
Ahmed Yousef, political advisor of Prime Minister Ismail Haneya of Hamas, made the denial two days after an Israeli daily published a draft plan for temporary solution between Hamas and the Jewish state and said the document was made by Yousef and European politicians.
Yousef told a news conference in Gaza that the articles that appeared in the document were not of Hamas or the Palestinian government, adding "it was absolute European drafting."
The plan is based on five-year truce between Israel and the Palestinians. Palestinian analysts considered it as indirect recognition of Israel by Hamas Islamists who had rejected
international demands to recognize Israel's right of existence.
"The truce doesn't mean the recognition of Israel," said Yousef, adding that it was a political offer in exchange for ending the Israeli occupation of the 1967 territories, releasing all prisoners and reinforcing the right of return.
The Hamas official reiterated that his movement accepts long- term truce only when the Palestinian statehood is established.



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