EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana insisted during a visit to the Middle East on Monday that the 27-nation bloc would have no contact with Hamas. "I want to repeat the position of the EU. There will not be contacts between the EU and Hamas," Solana told reporters in Ramallah.
"It is part of the policy of the Quartet. You know very well what Hamas has to do in order to change that policy," he added, according to the AFP.
Hamas is considered a terrorist group by the European Union, Israel and the United States. Quartet member Russia, along with non-EU member Norway, do maintain contact with the organisation.
Meanwhile, a senior Fatah leader jailed in Israel warned on Monday that Hamas could initiate an armed takeover in the occupied West Bank after capturing the Gaza Strip in June. "It would be a mistake if the Palestinian Authority doesn't take this possibility seriously, especially as the security services are so weak," Marwan Barghuti said in a statement released through his lawyer.
"I don't know if lessons were learnt after the rapid and humiliating collapse of the security services which numbered 40,000 men (in Gaza)," he said. "When put to the test, they collapsed and were proven weak and infiltrated (by Hamas)."
According to AFP, Barghuti also said he supported early general elections to solve the internal Palestinian crisis steming from the Hamas seizure of Gaza on June 15. "Parliamentary and presidential elections need to be organised so the people can decide. It's a way to get out of the current crisis and Hamas should agree to elections," he said.
