Hamas said willing to bend on identity of prisoners in swap

Source: Haaretz, 27-06-2007
Hamas is willing to be more flexible on the identity of the Palestinian prisoners it wants released in exchange for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, according to an "Israeli" who has been serving as the Shalit family`s personal liaison to Hamas.
Gershon Baskin, co-director of the "Israel"-Palestine Center for Research and Information, said that Ahmed Yusef, who is Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh`s political advisor, told him on Tuesday that "`Israel` should present a new list, of about 1,000 names, and Hamas will choose the prisoners [to be released] from it according to the number agreed on in the previous negotiations."
Baskin also sent a letter detailing this conversation to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert`s chief of staff, Yoram Turbowicz.
However, both senior Hamas officials and senior Egyptian officials cautioned on Tuesday that the negotiations over Shalit have been totally frozen for almost four weeks, ever since Hamas-Fatah infighting resumed in Gaza, and therefore, expectations of an imminent breakthrough are likely to prove overly optimistic.
"The negotiations have been at an impasse for some time," said Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha.
Both sets of officials added, however, that negotiations were likely to resume once Hamas feels that it has Gaza firmly under control.
A few months ago, Hamas submitted a list of the 450 prisoners it wants released in exchange for Shalit. "Israel" has reportedly agreed to this number, but was willing to free only 40 of the specific individuals on Hamas` list, and therefore demanded that the organization submit a new list.
Yusef told Baskin that Hamas was not willing to submit a new list, due to "`Israel`s` wholesale refusal to accept the organization`s demands in the first list." However, he added, if "Israel" were to submit a list of about 1,000 names to Hamas, the organization could then choose the remaining 410 from this list.