GAZA, June 25 (RIA Novosti) - The radical Islamist
movement Hamas denied on Thursday that any progress has been
made in talks on the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad
Shalit.
Regional media reported earlier this week that Israel was
close to a deal that will free the soldier, seized by Gaza
militants in a cross-border raid in June 2006. In exchange,
Israel would release over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israeli
officials, however, also denied the information.
"I can say for certain that nothing new has happened in
the prisoner swap process. We informed the Egyptian mediator of
our point of view on the swap," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum
told RIA Novosti.
"Israel bears responsibility for Shalit's three-year-long
confinement, as well as for the hundreds of Palestinians being
kept in Israeli prisons," he said. "This all happens due to the
Israeli side's refusal to accept our conditions for a prisoner
swap."
Israel and Hamas have so far failed to agree on the number
and identities of Palestinian prisoners to be freed under a
swap.
On Tuesday Israel released the Hamas speaker of the
Palestinian parliament, Abdel Aziz Duwaik.
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