By Xinhua,
Gaza : Meetings between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are “loss of time,” Islamic Hamas movement said on Monday. The meetings “are held upon American orders to grant more time(for Israel) and to divert the Palestinian and international opinion,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoom in a statement.
Warning the “danger” of Abbas-Olmert meetings, Barhoom urged the Palestinian President of Fatah movement to “put a final end to the series of negotiations and start a new phase paying more attention to the internal Palestinian situation.”
For Hamas, the meetings are meant to “pass projects which encourage the surrendering, planned by the U.S. administration andt he Israeli occupation, in the frame of building a Jewish state on Palestine.”
Abbas and Olmert started a meeting in Jerusalem today. It is part of their regular meetings to review progress of the peace talks launched last November following an American mediation effort.
The meeting also comes one day after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited the region to give another drive to the crippling talks.
In June last year, Hamas fought pro-Abbas forces and took over Gaza Strip. Abbas fired Hamas-led government and banned any talks with the Islamic movement.
To bolster Abbas, the U.S. helped resume the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks by holding Annapolis peace conference.