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Middle East
Haniya vows not to recognise Israel
The Palestinian PM says he will not give up until Jerusalem is "liberated".
Last Modified: 08 Dec 2006 13:58 GMT

Iran's support for Haniya has grown more vocal since president Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005. 

Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister, has vowed never to recognise Israel in a speech at Tehran's Friday prayers, the Iranian state news agency IRNA reported.

 

Haniya said: "We will not give up our Jihadist movement until the full liberation of Beit al-Muqqadas [Jerusalem] and Palestinian land."

"The Zionists ... want us to recognise the usurpation of our land ... but these things will never happen.
 
"We will never recognise the usurping Zionist regime."
 
Haniya is expected to meet with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president.

West "hallucinating"

 

Iran, like Haniya's Islamist group Hamas, refuses to recognise Israel.

 

It is a vocal supporter of the Hamas-led Palestinian government and has handed it $120m in aid since the administration was formed in March.

 

The Palestinian prime minister said: "They [Western countries] think that the Palestinian nation is alone in this war, but they are hallucinating ... We have a strategic depth here in the Islamic Republic of Iran and throughout the Islamic-Arabic world."

 

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has sought to put pressure on Hamas to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept existing interim peace accords.

 

"We are standing by the Islamic Republic of Iran, and with this country we will resist American and Zionist pressures"

Ismail Haniya

Ahmad Khatami, a Friday prayer leader in Tehran, reiterated Iran's support for the Hamas government and criticised Western financial sanctions against it.

 

"Those liars, instead of supporting and approving it [Hamas], have taken their swords aloft from the beginning against a government that was appointed by the people's votes," he said.

 

Haniya said: "We are standing by the Islamic Republic of Iran, and with this country we will resist American and Zionist pressures."

 

Hamas has sought to bolster ties with its regional allies as it seeks to replenish the Palestinian treasury after Western countries froze aid when the party took office.

 

Haniya's visit comes after the collapse of talks between Hamas and the secular Fatah faction of president Mahmoud Abbas on forming a government of national unity and ending the aid blockade.

Source:
Al Jazeera and agencies
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