Special report: Abbas calls for referendum on prisoners'
document
RAMALLAH, June 18 (Xinhua) -- The ruling Islamic Resistance Movement
(Hamas) expressed on Monday its optimism over reaching a deal over the
Prisoners' Document of National Accordance that calls for two-state solution.
"Hamas legislators and leaders held internal consultations and had
positively agreed on what appeared in the document as they seek to make the
dialogue succeeding," Ibraheem Dahbour, a senior Hamas leader, told the Voice of
Palestine radio.
On May 25, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas convened a national dialogue
to ask Palestinian factions to accept within 10 days the document filed by
Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails or he would put the proposal to a
referendum within 40 days.
The document calls for the establishment of an independent Palestinian
state in the territories that were occupied by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli
War. It is seen as implicitly recognizing the Jewish state.
Hamas, which formed a government in late March after a sweeping election
victory in January and whose charter calls for Israel's destruct, has rejected
the referendum idea.
If the agreement over the document brokered, the Palestinian factions,
especially the governing Hamas movement, would avoid a referendum set by
President Abbas over the whole articles of the document.
Meanwhile, Deputy Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC)
Ahmed Bahar revealed Monday that Hamas, which opposes the referendum and has
reservations over the document, accepted 15 articles of it.
Bahar added that there are three outstanding articles are put for talks and
expected to be agreed upon soon. But he declined to say in details what are the
three outstanding articles.
Regarding a conditional ceasefire proposal by the Hamas-led government,
Dahbour defended it and termed it as "a kind on an initiative" in spite of
opposition by the ruling movement.
Israel has to stop military escalation at first, according to the proposal,
Dahbour said. Enditem
