Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal / AFP
Fatah and Hamas in reconciliation talks
On 10 January, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas Leader Khaled Meshaal began reconciliation talks in Cairo.
Reconciliation talks between the two leaders started about a year ago, when Abbas and Meshaal gathered in Cairo to mark the peace agreement. The Fatah – Hamas conflict began in 2006, after Hamas defeated Abba’s long-dominant Fatah party. However, Hamas was recognised by US and EU as a terrorist organisation and refused to accept party’s authority. On September 2006, despite the fact that the two Palestinian parties announced an agreement to form a unity administration, talks flounder over the political stand towards Israel. Abbas's Fatah movement supported a Palestinian state alongside Israel, while Hamas rejected Israel's right to exist. Their disagreements lead to violence on the streets of Gaza.
Yesterday, Fatah's lead negotiator Azzam al-Ahmed told AFP that Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi “promised to work towards lifting the Gaza blockade and helping Palestinians out of their financial crisis, by lobbying donors and (our) Arab brothers.” On the other hand, Yousef Rizq, political adviser to Hamas's prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniya said that “Egypt's invitation does not necessarily mean this meeting will lead to a serious start of implementing the agreement…Abbas's insistence on holding elections first affects the atmosphere of the meeting.”
However, Fatah’s Ahmed commented that Abbas wanted the election committee to resume its work, “and after the committee ends its work, and there is a consensus government, then there will be elections.”
According to Egyptian officials, a reconciliation agreement that would lead to a unity government, is not welcomed by Washington as US along with other Western countries and Israel, said that Hamas must renounce violence and recognise Israel, first. new europe on line
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