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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Differences widen in Palestinian unity talks |
| 2009-03-16 |
| (Xinhua) -- Palestinian factions continued reconciliation talks in Cairo after Egypt extended the work of specialized committees for a few more days, Palestinian officials said Sunday. Ramzi Rabah, a member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation Palestine (DFLP), said that most of the differences were embedded in the elections committee. The dialogue mainly aims at reconciling Islamic Hamas movement and President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah by forming a unity government replacing their two feuding administrations of Gaza Strip and WestBank. The factions agreed on forming four committees to settle the controversial issues of the government, the security services, theelections and reforming the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Afifth committee is assigned to press on for the reconciliation. According to Rabah, the differences in the elections committee were about the time of holding the presidential and parliamentary elections. As Hamas' term in the parliament ends in January 2010, Hamas' says the term of Abbas as a president has expired at the beginning of this year. "We, the DFLP and some more factions, demand that all the elections be held in their due time in January 2010 but some factions demand to postpone them for two years and this is unacceptable," Rabah said. He added that other differences involve the proportional representation and some factions consider the Central Elections Committee (CLC), the body to oversee the elections, biased to Fatah. |
| Posted by:Fred |