Abbas confident of ceasefire

2003-05-29 13:08

Jerusalem - Palestinian prime minister Mahmud Abbas said he would reach a ceasefire with the hardline Islamic movement Hamas by next week, in an interview published on Thursday.

"I believe that next week I will reach a ceasefire agreement with Hamas," Abbas told the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot.

His comments come a few hours before a key meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to discuss implementation of the internationally drafted roadmap for peace, which calls among other things for an end to the violence.

"Hamas will undertake to stop terrorism both inside the Green Line and in the territories," Abbas said. "In the wake of the agreement with Hamas I hope also to reach an agreement with the Tanzim and Islamic Jihad, but we have not had a chance to meet yet."

The word Tanzim refers to armed groups linked to Fatah, the party founded in the late 1950s by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Abbas, and the most important of which is the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

The Green Line is the line separating Israel from the West Bank.

"We are engaged in talks on this subject with the organisations' leaders abroad and with the activists in the prisons," Abbas added.

When he was sworn in a month ago, Abbas vowed to disarm radical militant groups in a bid to put an end to 32 months of bloodshed and implement the roadmap.

Hamas' political leader Abdul Aziz al-Rantisi suggested that the Yediot story was putting too optimistic a spin on the situation, saying he did not consider the newspaper to be a reliable source.

He said that "Hamas is still discussing the issue at the highest level but we haven't reached a decision for the moment.

"Our position is unchanged, we agree to stop attacks against Israeli civilians if Israel stops its aggression against our people, the incursions and the assassinations. For a real ceasefire, we need attacks to be frozen on both sides."

- AFX