A senior Hamas official on Wednesday denied reports that Egypt had accepted to amend its national Palestinian reconciliation's offer in exchange for more conditions presented to the Islamic movement. The official, Salah al-Bardaweel, told Xinhua that contacts between his movement and Egypt "like frozen and limited to handling some issues on the field that are unrelated to political matters" since Hamas refused to sign the Egyptian proposal. The proposal aims at reconciling Hamas with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party and restore political unity between the Hamas-controlled Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas routed pro-Abbas forces and seized Gaza in 2007. On Wednesday, the Ramallah-based al-Ayyam daily reported that Egypt had agreed to reflect Hamas' reservations in its offer if the Islamic movement accepted ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict on two-state solution and recognised the Arab peace initiative of 2002. Al-Bardaweel noted that the previous demands were presented to Hamas in the past by Saudi Arabia, which drafted the Arab peace initiative towards Israel, and other countries as questions to understand the movement's reaction to them.
