Meshaal ready for talks with Abbas

The political bureau chief of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas reiterated in a Friday speech he was ready to talk unconditionally with Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas.

"We are ready for an unconditional dialogue in which all issues will be discussed, including that of bringing forward elections. I say to the leaders of Fatah that our differences are political," Khaled Meshaal said, in a speech in Damascus on the 20th anniversary of the founding of Hamas.

"No Arab country has asked Hamas to give up on the current situation in Gaza," Meshaal said, adding the government of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad should go.

"Our people must stop this government from selling off Palestinian interests," he added.

"Hamas will resist until the last Israeli soldier leaves Palestinian soil," Meshaal said.

"This is a strategic choice. Resistance will continue -- no one can stop it."

He denied there had been contacts between the Islamic Resistance Movement and the Zionists and said Hamas had turned down a European proposal for such a meeting to discuss ways of calming the situation.

"Gaza is starving and surrounded but it is still resisting," Meshaal said.

He called upon Arab leaders to take a courageous decision in order to lift the embargo.

Mashaal also said an Israeli soldier arrested by Gaza activist groups on June 15, 2006, would not be freed unilaterally.

"We will not free Gilad Shalit unless our prisoners are released by the Zionist regime," he said.