| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Israel-Palestine-Jordan | |
| Palestinian unity meeting postponed | |
| 2011-06-20 | |
| [Al Jazeera] A planned announcement of a new Paleostinian unity government has been delayed after the Fatah and Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, movements failed to agree on a prime minister. The announcement was planned for Tuesday, but Fatah officials told the Rooters news agency that talks between Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas, ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... who heads Fatah, and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal, had been postponed. The unity deal was reached after both groups agreed to a reconciliation deal in April, when the rival factions agreed to form an administration of ministers without party affiliations, to prepare for general elections within a year. Fatah, led by Western-backed Abbas, nominated Salam Fayyad, ...Fayyad's political agenda holds that neither violence nor peaceful negotiations have brought the Paleostinians any closer to an independent state. The alternative to both, violent negotiations, doesn't seem to be working too well, either... a former World Bank economist who currently heads the Paleostinian government in the West Bank, to the post. Hamas, the group which maintains power in the Gazoo Strip since taking control from Fatah in 2007, has rejected Fayyad, accusing him of co-operating with Israel's blockade on Gazoo. "We asked our brothers and the Egyptian leadership to postpone the meeting for several days," said Azzam al-Ahmed, head of the Fatah delegation to unity talks in Cairo, citing Abbas's busy schedule. "We will call them in a few days to set a date for a new meeting, and we hope the next session will be successful," he told Rooters. 'Serious implications' Other Fatah officials, who asked not be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, attributed the delay to the dispute over appointing Fayyad. Hamas spokesperson Taher Al-Nono confirmed that Fatah asked for a delay. "We are ready to meet once they are," Al-Nono told Rooters. A statement issued earlier from the office of Ismail Haniyeh, ...became Prime Minister after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank... the head of Hamas' administration in Gazoo, said: "The meeting may be postponed and this will have serious implications for the discussions on forming the government." Last week, Paleostinian officials said Abbas and Meshaal would meet in Cairo on Tuesday to unveil the new government.
Israel has said the reconciliation accord, brokered in secrecy by Egypt, would not secure peace and it urged Abbas to continue to shun Hamas. | |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 Doesn't fit? Why, the words go together like water and sodium. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2011-06-20 11:52 |
| #1 "Palestinian" & "unity", something doesn't fit. |
| Posted by: gr(o)mgoru 2011-06-20 04:01 |