Islamic Jihad says won't join Palestinian government

GAZA, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Islamic Jihad on Wednesday ruled out joining a new Palestinian government following Hamas's election victory or forging any long-term truce with Israel.

"Islamic Jihad will not join the coming cabinet," Khaled al-Batsh, a leader of the militant group, told a news conference, voicing a position it had been widely expected to take.

"If the government will have an agenda of resistance, we will support it," he said, referring to attacks on Israelis.

Hamas, which swept the Jan. 25 election, says it wants to form a coalition government. Islamic Jihad boycotted the polls.

Hamas politburo head Khaled Meshaal said his group was still talking to all parties including Islamic Jihad, and Fatah which long dominated Palestinian politics.

"There is still time to reach understanding with these forces," he said. "It's hasty to consider what we hear in the media as final positions," he said.

Meshaal told reporters in Cairo "resistance will remain a legitimate right" of the Palestinian people "until the liberation of its land and recovery of its rights".

"The movement (Hamas) will not stand against resistance. It will not condemn resistance operations," he said, adding that it would also not arrest guerrillas fighting Israel.

Fatah has yet to tell Hamas whether it will join its government. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a Fatah member, has said he would expect any Palestinian government to respect peace deals made with Israel in the 1990s.

But Hamas and Islamic Jihad are committed to Israel's destruction.

Batsh said any long-term ceasefire with Israel would be useless and Islamic Jihad "rejects it completely".

In a BBC interview, Meshaal said Hamas "could possibly give a long-term truce" but only if Israel withdrew from the occupied West Bank, recognised a right of return for Palestinian refugees and dismantled all settlements.

Israel has rejected those conditions, first voiced by Ahmed Yassin, a Hamas leader it assassinated in 2004.

Speaking in Cairo, Meshaal said: "Some think Hamas is offering a long-term truce and we'll wait to see what Israel will do and beg it to give us our rights. This is not on the table."

Hamas has largely abided by a ceasefire Abbas declared with Israel a year ago.

Islamic Jihad accepted the truce but later pronounced it dead, carrying out several suicide bombings in Israel it said were in retaliation for Israeli attacks.