Hamas refuses to maintain dialogue with the PA

The Hamas movement has refused to participate in a dialogue with the PA on joining final status negotiations with Israel, citing that the failure of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to open a channel of dialogue with Hamas through Palestinian Minister of State Talal Sader, one of the movement's former leaders.

Sader had met with the chairman of the movement's political bureau, Khaled Mishaal, in Amman in the middle of last week and conveyed to him the desire of the Palestinian leadership to maintain a dialogue.

But Mishaal replied, "Those who had a dialogue with the PA in the past are today in its prisons."

Mishaal, at the same time, expressed the movement's welcome to dialogue "for strengthening national unity but not for using Hamas as a negotiation point in the final status talks."