Egypt Denies Responsibility For Palestinian Unity Deal Postponement

Egypt denied on Sunday its responsibility for the postponement of signing a Palestinian reconciliation deal, according to local internet reports.
   Hossam Zaki, spokesperson of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, said that Egypt is not responsible for the delay of signing Palestinian deal as a spokesman of Hamas alleged, Xinhua reported.
   Zaki stressed that the document drafted by Egypt was not negotiable, saying that negotiations lasted for months and Egypt received comments from all factions and discussed them at the highest levels.
   He added that Palestinian reconciliation needs a serious political will, calling all parties to think seriously about it because reconciliation is in the interest of the Palestinian people.
   "Egypt is not prepared to wait forever," said Zaki.
   The Palestinian Islamic Hamas movement said Sunday it is in contacts with Egypt to hand out its response to an Egyptian proposal for restoring Palestinian unity.
   "Hamas has studied the Egyptian paper and there are contacts to arrange a visit for a delegation from the movement or to find a mechanism to deliver the notes that Hamas had registered on the Egyptian proposal," Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, told Xinhua on Friday.
   Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, Hamas' bitter rival, has accepted the Egyptian offer which calls for holding the Palestinian general elections in mid-2010 after taking several steps to reunite the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip with the Fatah- administrated West Bank.
   Earlier on Friday, Egyptian mediators decided to postpone the signing of a Palestinian unity deal between the rival Fatah and Hamas movement as a result of the dispute over the Goldstone report. Enditem