The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, called unexpectedly late Wednesday for a resumption of dialogue with the Islamic militant group Hamas, a move that could herald a breakdown of his peace talks with Israel.
In a short televised speech, Mr. Abbas, who is based in the West Bank, expressed his desire to restore national unity. Hamas took control of Gaza in June 2007.
Mr. Abbas said that if talks with Hamas succeeded, he would call for legislative and presidential elections. His term is supposed to end in January.
The Hamas takeover followed a brief but bloody factional war that ended with the routing of the Fatah forces loyal to Mr. Abbas. He subsequently fired the Hamas-led unity government, in which Fatah had participated, and appointed an alternative government in the West Bank.
Hamas has long declared its readiness for negotiations to heal the national division, but Fatah has demanded that Hamas rescind control of Gaza first. Mr. Abbas’s tone on Wednesday was more neutral, and Hamas leaders in Gaza welcomed the speech.
Ahmed Youssef, an adviser to the Hamas government in Gaza, said the language was “very positive” and opened the door for dialogue “without placing any conditions for the first time.”
Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to Mr. Abbas, denied on Wednesday that Fatah had dropped its demand for Hamas to “revoke its coup d’état in Gaza.” But, in an interview on Tuesday in Ramallah on the West Bank, Mr. Erekat hinted about the need for renewed dialogue. “I have a problem internally with Hamas, and it is not going to be solved by bullets,” he said.
Israel resumed peace talks with Mr. Abbas only after he broke away from Hamas. Israel has had indirect contact with Hamas to explore the possibility of a temporary cease-fire in and around Gaza, so far without success. But Israel has refused to have direct contact with the group, which it considers a terrorist organization, and it has threatened to cut off talks with Mr. Abbas if he rejoins forces with Hamas.
In any case, the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that were initiated at the United States-sponsored conference in Annapolis, Md., last fall have yielded little. With the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, embroiled in a corruption investigation and the country apparently moving toward early elections, there seems little chance of an agreement on Palestinian statehood this year.
The chief of the Palestinian negotiating team, Ahmed Qurei, said Wednesday that “only a miracle” would make it work.
Mr. Youssef, the Hamas adviser, interpreted Mr. Abbas’s call for dialogue as a sign of distress. “He has been disappointed by the American administration and his Israeli negotiators,” Mr. Youssef said, adding that Mr. Abbas had been losing the respect of his people “on a daily basis.”
The Palestinians have been frustrated by Israel’s refusal to freeze settlement activity in the West Bank. Israel says it will not build new settlements, but construction continues on existing ones, mainly in the large blocs that Israel intends to retain under any permanent agreement.
On Sunday the Israeli Housing Ministry said it was proceeding with plans to build more than 800 apartments in two Jewish suburbs in East Jerusalem. The Palestinians claim that territory, which Israel annexed after the 1967 war, as part of a future state.
Against this backdrop, Mr. Abbas’s prime minister, Salam Fayyad, started a high-profile dispute with Israel on Wednesday when he called on the European Union to refuse Israel’s request to upgrade its ties with the union. Mr. Fayyad said that Israel should first meet its obligations, “especially those related to halting all settlement activities and other violations of human rights in Palestine.”
Mr. Fayyad sent a letter to the European Union with a similar message in late May, his adviser Jamal Zakout said.
An Israeli government official expressed “deep regret and disappointment” on Wednesday at what he called the Palestinians’ efforts to “undermine” Israel’s relations with Europe.
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