CAIRO, January 2. /TASS/. Hamas will be ready to accept initiatives on any refugee exchange arrangement only after a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, a senior political leader of the Palestinian radical movement said.

"We responded to initiatives that had been put forward by Hamas through the Egyptian and Qatari mediators," Dubai’s Al Hadath television channel quoted Ismail Haniyeh as saying. "We conditioned the acceptance of any initiatives on an immediate ceasefire in Gaza," the chairman of Hamas’s political bureau added.