Hamas asks Cairo to postpone signing reconciliation deal: Official

Gaza City - Hamas asked Egypt Wednesday to postpone a ceremony to sign a reconciliation pact with President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, saying no deal would be cemented until he apologizes for agreeing to delay a debate on a UN report on Israel's Gaza offensive at the turn of the year. Hamas and other factions accuse Abbas of giving instructions Friday to withdraw Palestinian support to have the report compiled by a fact-finding team headed by Judge Richard Goldstone sent to the UN General Assembly.

The report alleges that Israel and Hamas committed war crimes during the December-January offensive against Gaza-based militant groups.

Salah al-Bardawil, a senior Gaza-based Hamas leader said in a statement that "the crime of postponing the vote on Goldstone's report left a severe psychological crack, and Abbas should immediately apologize to the Palestinian people."

Fatah and the Islamist movement have been at loggerheads since June 2007, when in a week of bloody violence Hamas gunmen routed security officials loyal to Abbas and the Palestinian Authority and seized control of the Gaza Strip.

Cairo is scheduled to invite leaders of the Palestinian factions, including exiled Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal and Abbas, to sign a deal which would end the inter-Palestinian rift this month.

But al-Bardawil said serious contacts were under way with Egypt to study the effects postponing the vote on the Goldstone report would have on the reconciliation attempt.

He added that "there have to be Arab guarantees that Abbas would no longer take or make decisions unilaterally".

Several officials from Abbas inner circle admitted Wednesday that he had erred in agreeing to delay action on the Goldstone report.

According to Israel's Ha'aretz daily, the Palestinian leader's associates have also said that Abbas had support for postponing the decision not only from the United States, but also from Britain and China, while several Arab states, who had come under pressure from Washington, also urged him to withdraw the motion.