Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, announcing plans to talk with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Oct. 2, said Sunday he had appealed to the United Nations and European Union to press the Palestinian leader to ban Hamas from a legislative election.
“I talked today to the secretary-general of the United Nations. I talked to every European leader about this issue,” Sharon, who attended the U.N. World Summit this week, said in an address to U.S. Jewish leaders.
“I asked them that they will understand our position about that and they have to put pressure that the Hamas people can participate in the elections only once they hand over their weapons and they ban the Hamas covenant,” he said in English.
Hamas advocates the destruction of the Jewish state and is a powerful force in Gaza, where Israel completed a pullout last Monday.
Abbas hopes Hamas’ participation for the first time in a legislative election, scheduled for Jan. 25, will move the fundamentalist Islamic group away from confrontation with Israel and toward a role in mainstream Palestinian politics.
Sharon said Abbas was making a “major mistake” and reiterated that Israel would not cooperate with the Palestinians in facilitating balloting in the occupied West Bank if Hamas ran on the ballot without first disarming.
An aide to Sharon said that would mean no easing of Palestinian access to polling stations in the area dotted by Israeli military checkpoints, or helping in arranging voting in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.
Palestinian officials have urged Israel not to interfere with Palestinian politics.
Thousands of armed Hamas militants marched through Gaza City Sunday, defying efforts to remove unauthorized weapons from the streets just days after Abbas vowed not to tolerate armed chaos.
“I would like very much to help Abu Mazen,” said Sharon, using Abbas’ popular nickname.
“I am going to see him on the second of October,” he said, reaffirming there could be no progress toward Palestinian statehood unless the Palestinian Authority disarmed militant groups as stipulated by a U.S.-backed peace “road map.”
Last talks in June
Sharon and Abbas, who declared a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in February, last held talks on June 21 at the prime minister’s Jerusalem residence.
Earlier on Sunday, Sharon met U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the end of a six-day visit during which he addressed the World Summit and held talks on its sidelines with President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other leaders.
“I expressed the dangers (of Hamas’ participation in the election), not only dangers to us but maybe the most dangerous thing is the dangers to the Palestinian Authority, to Abu Mazen himself,” Sharon about his talks with Annan.
Hamas, which made a strong showing in recent municipal elections, is widely expected to do well in the parliamentary poll at the expense of Abbas’ main Fatah faction.
