PALESTINIAN efforts to forge a national unity government are back at square one, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said today. Speaking after talks in Cairo with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Mr Abbas accused the Islamist group Hamas of reneging on agreements with Fatah. "Unfortunately after this agreement was signed there were regressions from it... and unfortunately we are back to point zero, and we will examine the issue anew," Mr Abbas said.Mr Abbas is trying to build a coalition of his moderate Fatah party and Hamas, which defeated it in elections in January. A deal on a unity government was reached on September 11 and talks on the coalition's formation have faltered since. Mr Abbas said the U.S. and European states in the U.N. Security Council did not find Hamas's position "conducive to building a national unity government".
Mr Abbas said Thursday's attempt by the Arab League to get the Security Council involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was not intended to seek a new decision by the Council, but an effort to have the U.S.-led road map for Middle East peace implemented. "We went to focus on implementing this decision, because we believe the road map plan is sufficient, if it is taken seriously," Mr Abbas said.