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

(AP) Rival Palestinian factions reached an agreement on how to divide up Cabinet posts in a power-sharing government, which is crucial to averting a civil war, a Fatah official said Thursday.

But on the second day of their marathon summit, the mainstream Fatah movement and the militant Hamas group were still working on the second part of the agreement: to what degree a new goverment will recognize previous peace deals with Israel.

That issue is key to whether any government that emerges from the Mecca conference will be accepted by the United States and Israel. If they judge that the militant Hamas group has moderated enough as part of a new government, it could mean the lifting of the painful financial boycott of the Palestinian government and a resumption of the peace process with Israel.

The delegations from Hamas and the moderate Fatah faction talked until 3 a.m. Thursday and resumed midmorning in a palace overlooking the Kaaba, Islam's holiest site _ a venue pointedly chosen by their Saudi hosts.

Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad said a complete deal could be reached Thursday or Friday.

"We have achieved progress in some points, and there are no points that can hinder reaching an agreement," he told a news conference. "We have a clear decision not to let the Mecca dialogue fail. We have no option: either to succeed or to succeed."

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.

The wording of the new government's line on the peace accords has become the No. 1 issue, delegates said Thursday. Hamas, which has long rejected Israel's existence, will not accept that the government "commit" itself to the accords, regarding that as tantamount to recognition of the Jewish state. But the militant group will endorse "respect" for the accords.

"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.

A Fatah delegate said Abbas had asked the Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal if he could sound out the Americans on whether "respect the accords" is acceptable.

Abbas is ready "to give Hamas a blank check" on the wording so long as the Americans will buy it, a Fatah delegate said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

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.

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

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."

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.

Hamad, the Hamas spokesman, bristled at the pressure on the militant group to recognize Israel, saying doing so would not necessarily lead to the Palestinians' ultimate goal of a state with Jerusalem as its capital.

"Recognizing Israel is not like the staff of Moses by which we can solve all the crises," he said. "We want to ease the Palestinian people suffering (from the boycott), but that is not going to be done with any price."