Moussa Abu Marzouk, a member of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, said on Thursday the United States did not change its stance towards Hamas in a long-anticipated speech delivered by US president.

Abu Marzouk told pan-Arab TV channel al-Arabiya that US President Barack Obama have concentrated in the outreach address to the Muslim world more on the issue of discarding violence than other aspects of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

He said there was no positive steps taken in the speech, noting that the US president spoke firmly about US commitments towards Israel but that was not the case when he spoke about the Palestinian rights.

In his long-anticipated speech to the Muslim world, Obama stressed the need of a Palestinian statehood alongside Israel, renewed the US commitment to maintaining alliance with Israel and called on Hamas to renounce violence and recognize the Jewish state's right in existence.

The Hamas member, who led the Hamas delegation to internal Palestinian reconciliation talks in Cairo in May, said Obama compared the sufferings of the Palestinians to the "historical injustice" Israelis suffered from the past in Europe.

Although the US president stressed the commitment to Jews over the injustice they suffered from, Obama did not take a firm stance against those who treated Palestinians in an unjust way, Abu Marzouk said.

The Hamas member also said Obama used a "conciliatory" tone in his address to the Islamic world that is different from that of his predecessor, noting that Washington is currently in need to get more close with the Islamic world because all its wars are in Muslim countries.

Obama, who arrived in Cairo on Thursday morning, then delivered the speech, attended by more than 1,000 audiences in the conference hall of Cairo University, after his talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

(Xinhua News Agency June 5, 2009)