Several months after Hamas' 2006 election victory, Haniyeh sent a letter to U.S. President Georg W. Bush, in which he called on the "American government to have direct negotiations with the elected government", offered a long-term truce with Israel, while accepting a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders and urged an end to the international boycott, claiming that it would "encourage violence and chaos".'. The U.S. government did not respond and maintained its boycott.