CAIRO: Egypt made a shaky start on Wednesday in its mediation on the future of the Palestinian Authority after the militant Islamist group Hamas won last week s parliamentary elections. After talks between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a senior Egyptian official said Abbas would not ask Hamas to form a government unless it recognizes Israel and meets other conditions. But a senior Palestinian official quickly denied that recognizing Israel was one of Abbas s conditions. The official, who is close to Abbas, said the leader would, however, insist that the new government give a commitment to implement past agreements with Israel. Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman had said Abbas was also demanding that Hamas stop violence and accept agreements which the Palestinians have signed with Israel. Hamas has to be committed to three issues - first to stop violence, this should be its doctrine, second to be committed to all the agreements signed with Israel, third, to recognize the existence of Israel. If they don t do this, Abu Mazen (Abbas) will not ask them to form the government, he told reporters. Suleiman is Mubarak s pointman on dealings with the Palestinians. He has mediated between Hamas and Abbas s Fatah movement and between Israelis and Palestinians. Egypt is expected to be a prominent intermediary as Abbas and Hamas try to form a new government while averting the danger of foreign donors cutting off aid. In its own comments on the Hamas victory, Egypt has not taken the position which Suleiman attributed to Abbas on formal recognition of Israel. In an interview published on Wednesday in the Cairo newspaper Al Masry Al Youm, Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit said Hamas might be willing to coexist with Israel if Israel returns to its 1967 borders. Asked about Hamas s advocacy of a Palestinian state including all of Israel, he said: I don t believe that this is the framework. I believe that Hamas is talking about the borders of 1967 and in this they do not differ much from all the Palestinian national currents or the Arab proposal. Being in office would have an effect on Hamas' thinking, he said. The whole dossier will be in its hands, which leads me to believe that logically it (Hamas) will be compelled towards the greatest degree of flexibility. The Egyptian presidential spokesman also gave no hint of a shift in the Egyptian position on the Hamas victory, which Cairo says it has accepted as the choice of the Palestinians. Egypt s stance is that this is democracy... This is what has resulted from free and fair elections, Awad told reporters. You cannot punish the Palestinian people for their democratic choice. It s a nation which needs international support, both economic and political, he added. Awad said Mubarak had dissuaded Abbas, who was elected in separate presidential elections last year, from resigning. President Mubarak encouraged Abu Mazen to continue to perform his functions as legitimate elected president of the authority until (his term) ends in 2009, he said. Mubarak also had talks on Wednesday with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad said Hamas leader Khaled Meshal would visit Egypt soon. A delegation from Hamas is on its way to Cairo to meet with Meshal, who spends much of his time in Damascus, and then start a tour of Arab countries to urge them to maintain aid. Reuters
