Khaled Al-Batsh, a leader of the Islamic Jihad movement, said on Tuesday that his movement "totally rejects" holding any direct or indirect contacts with Israel in the future.

Al-Batsh told reporters that his movement still considers Israel an occupying state and the Palestinian people are still occupied.

He said that Jihad movement had rejected previously all attempts to hold contact or dialogue with Israel, adding that Israel holds dialogues with the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) only.

Al-Batsh, however, expressed that we have no problem if Israel wants to hold dialogues with any of the Palestinian factions and we don't prohibit any one freedom of opinion.

Earlier, a senior official in the Israeli army has called for holding dialogues with the Palestinian factions, especially the radical Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Jihad after the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza strip.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon demands the PNA to dismantle what he describes the infrastructure of the armed Palestinian organizations as a condition to start implementing the roadmap peace plan and to start the final status negotiations.

Al-Batsh said that the Israeli occupation still exists on Palestinian territories, so the issue of the Palestinian resistance arms is not a question of discussion in this period.

Sameer Hleileh, secretary general of the PNA cabinet, also

rejected Sharon's statements linking between implementing the roadmap and dismantling the armed factions.

Hleileh told the Voice of Palestine radio that the Israeli position of this issue differs from the international position and partially converge with the US position.

Source: Xinhua