Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced on Thursday that
hope remained to free a captive British journalist in Gaza. Abbas
has successfully brokered a plan with Hamas Prime Minister Ismail
Haneya to free the BBC's Alan Johnson.?
Alan Johnston, 44, a reporter for BBC Radio in Gaza was abducted
from his car on March 12. No movement has claimed the kidnapping
and Johnson's fate has now stretched on longer than any foreign
journalist previously seized and released in the Gaza Strip.
Abbas said that a plan had been finalized Haneya and Interior
Minister Hani al-Qawasmi to help free the kidnapped BBC
reporter.
"I have come to Gaza to work on releasing the captive British
correspondent," Abbas told a crowd of Palestinian journalists,
protesting the kidnap in front of his journalist.
On Wednesday, Abbas received a call from British Foreign
Secretary Margaret Beckett to discuss freeing Johnson.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Haneya on Thursday also met with
British Consul-General Richard Makepeace in Gaza Strip in the first
high-level contact between Haneya and a British diplomat.
Speaking before the 30-minute meeting, a British official
specified that Consul-General Richard Makepeace would "just discuss
the kidnapping" and that these talks should not be taken as a
change of policy for the EU, which sees Hamas as a terrorist
group.?
"We had asked for a meeting with the prime minister over this
very important humanitarian issue," Makepeace told reporters in
Arabic after the session, which drew Israeli criticism.
"I believe all of us want to achieve a peaceful and a quick
solution to this unfortunate problem," he said.
Ghazi Hamad, a Palestinian government spokesman, said: "I think
we are close to resolve it (Johnston's release). But more time will
be needed to bring him back peacefully, alive and unharmed, so we
are discussing all possibilities."
Hamad revealed that Haniyeh told Makepeace of his hopes that
this meeting could lead to wider dialogue with Britain on political
and economic issues.
Israel has stated that Western powers should keep up their
boycott of the new unity government formed last month by Hamas and
Abbas' secular Fatah party.
This boycott stems from Hamas refusing to accept demands from a
Quartet of Middle East peace mediators - the United States, the EU,
the United Nations and Russia - namely that it recognize Israel,
renounce violence and abide by existing interim Israeli-Palestinian
peace accords.
A senior Israeli official criticized the meeting as having
harmed efforts to reduce Hamas' political clout, and as having set
a dangerous precedent for diplomatic advances being gained through
kidnapping foreigners.
"This undermines our policy and opens the door to further
abductions," said the official, who declined to be identified.
The United States, briefly breaking ranks with Israel, also said
it would hold unofficial contacts with non-Hamas government
figures, a line followed by Britain and some European nations.
Western diplomats have retaliated saying that the no-contact
policy regarding Hamas can be relaxed in extreme cases such as
Johnson's abduction.?
(Xinhua News Agency, China Daily via agencies, April 6,
2007)
