Palestinian leaders vow to push ahead with Mecca talks until deal reached

(AP) Rival Palestinian factions were headed into a second full day of talks Thursday focusing on the composition of a coalition Cabinet and what commitments the West would require to lift its financial boycott of a government involving the militant group Hamas.

The Hamas and Fatah delegations discussed the options until 3 a.m. Saudi time Thursday. They were due to resume midmorning in a palace overlooking the Kaaba, Islam's holiest site _ a venue pointedly chosen by their Saudi hosts.

The two sides' leaders, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and Khaled Mashaal of Hamas, began the summit Wednesday by pledging to work out a power-sharing agreement, seen as the only way to stop months of bloody street battles from erupting into full-blown civil war.

Their agreement, and the way it addresses the existing peace accords with Israel, is also crucial to the relaunch of the peace process and to the ending of the West's aid blockade, which has left thousands of Palestinian civil servants unpaid for months.

In Gaza, people waited anxiously for the talks to produce results. Gunmen added sandbags and other reinforcements to their positions on streets and rooftops in Gaza City. Four days of gunbattles between Fatah and Hamas fighters killed more than 30 people and wounded over 200 others until the cease-fire took hold Sunday.

The imprisoned Palestinian militant leader Marwan Barghouti sent an e-mail from an Israeli jail that warned: "If the dialogue currently taking place in Mecca fails, history will have no mercy on those who took part, and they will not soon be forgiven by the Palestinian people."

Delegates said the toughest issues are the selection of ministers for a coalition Cabinet _ particularly who takes the Interior Ministry _ and how the new government's program addresses the existing peace accords with Israel.

Hamas, which has long rejected Israel's existence, has declined to accept that the program declare its "commitment" to the accords, regarding that as tantamount to recognition of the Jewish state. The word being proposed is "respect."

"We don't have a problem in accepting the wording 'respect' the agreements," said Nabil Amr, a spokesman for the Fatah delegation.

"We have informed the Saudis and our brothers in Hamas that we are ready to sign any phrasing accepted by the world for the sake of lifting the siege," he added.

International acceptance is key. Unless Israel, the United States and the European Union find the wording satisfactory, the financial embargo will not be lifted and it will be difficult to advance the peace process.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Wednesday her country would not accept a Palestinian government that does not explicitly renounce violence and accept the right of Israel to exist. Her comments raised the question of whether any coalition government that emerges from Mecca would be acceptable to Israel, which has refused to talk to the Hamas-led government, though it has held talks with Abbas, a moderate who was elected separately in 2005.

Fatah officials have said Abbas has underlined to the United States _ Israel's top ally _ the need for flexibility about a new government.

Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are due to meet on Feb. 19 in Jerusalem for talks intended to revive the peace process.

"The atmosphere is positive," said Mohammed Nazal of the Hamas delegation after Wednesday's formal negotiations, which began with strong professions of commitment to reaching a deal.

"We will not leave this holy place until we have agreed on everything good, with God's blessing," Abbas told the opening ceremony, where he sat alongside his old rival Mashaal.

In his opening remarks, Mashaal turned to Abbas and said they both had to tell their supporters to respect a truce reached Sunday, to which Abbas nodded his agreement.

"We came here to agree and we have no other option but to agree," Mashaal said.

The Saudis, who did not participate in the talks, have invested considerable effort in convening the negotiations. The kingdom seeks both an end to the bloodshed in the Palestinian streets and the resumption of formal Israeli-Palestinian settlement talks _ something it regards as vital to reducing tensions across the Mideast.

Hamas worries that if it compromises its hard-line positions on Israel, the new government may fail to achieve the long cherished Palestinian goals in talks with Israel, and that would hurt its credibility.

"Who can guarantee that we will not be making a mistake if we give concessions?" Nazal said. "Will we get an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital?"