Special report: Internal situation in Palestine

    RAMALLAH, June 20 (Xinhua) -- A senior Fatah official denied on Tuesday any significant progress in the inter-Palestinian dialogue that aims to avoid a referendum called by President Mahmoud Abbason a statehood proposal alongside Israel.

    Three points of the proposal raised by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are still rejected by the ruling Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and its ally Islamic Jihad (Holy War), head of Fatah's parliamentary bloc Azzam al-Ahmad told the Voice of Palestine radio.

    Earlier on Monday, Ibraheem Dahbour, a senior Hamas leader, expressed the movement's 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," he told the Voice of Palestine radio.

    But al-Ahmad said that "we still disagree on the essential points" with Hamas and "so far, there is no agreement over the controversial points in the dialogue that is ongoing in Gaza."

    Al-Ahmad also denied any imminent agreement over a new government, but urged Hamas "to rethink their positions" in order to reach an agreement soon.

    On May 25, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas convened a national dialogue to ask Palestinian factions to accept within 10 days the proposal filed by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails or he would put the proposal to a referendum within 40 days.

    The proposal, or the prisoners' 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.

    It was reported that Hamas, which used to oppose the proposal and the referendum, had accepted 15 out of the 18 points listed in the prisoners' proposal.

    The three key issues that Hamas did not agree are recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the Palestinians' supreme representative, securing the return of the refugees according to relevant UN resolutions and accepting the Arab peace initiative. Enditem