Mubarak: We won't talk to Hamas on Rafah

Egyptian president: "There's only one Palestinian Authority. The Hamas authority is in Damascus."

By JPOST.COM STAFF
"Egypt will not negotiate with Hamas regarding control of the Rafah border crossing," Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Thursday. Speaking to reporters in Spain, the Egyptian president said his country would only conduct talks with the Palestinian Authority concerning the Gaza-Egypt border, breached last week by Hamas gunmen. "There is only one Palestinian Authority," he said. "The Hamas authority is in Damascus, not in Gaza." In an interview published in Spain Tuesday, Mubarak vowed that the border breach would not happen again. "It is a mistake to besiege the Palestinians but we will not accept that the border (with Gaza) be left open indefinitely. What happened will not be repeated," he told the ABC newspaper. ‏ Mubarak rejected responsibility for last week's violence between Egyptian security forces and Palestinians at the Rafah terminal. ‏ "We did not give any order to shoot anyone," he said. ‏ Mubarak went on to say that a US-style democracy could not be imposed in Egypt and must be adapted to "the character, composition of the population and way of life of the people."