Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas Wednesday again ruled out any dialogue with the rival Hamas movement after its "putsch" in the Gaza Strip. "What Hamas did is a crime against the nation and a military putsch and those responsible for these actions are the sacked prime minister (Ismail Haniya) and others in the movement," Abbas said at a press conference with visiting Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller.
"As soon as they admit their responsibility for this coup and change the situation on the ground, we will reconsider, but for the moment there will not be any dialogue with them." Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip on June 15 after overrunning security strongholds of Abbas's secular Fatah movement in a deadly bout of gunbattles that left more than 115 people dead in a week.
Abbas sacked the Hamas-led unity government and set up an emergency cabinet in the West Bank political capital of Ramallah after the Islamist take-over of Gaza, effectively splitting the Palestinians into two separate entities. The Palestinian leader also voiced his determination to try to implement the so-called roadmap for peace drafted by the Middle East Quartet - the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States.
"We want to implement the roadmap as soon as possible in order to reach the two-state solution, an independent and democratic Palestinian state living side by side with Israel. The Danish minister, on a tour of the region, called for Palestinians to respect the legality of Abbas's presidency, saying Hamas could not build a state in Gaza.