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Editorial Note: The
following news reports are summaries from original sources. They may
also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology.
Comments are in parentheses. |
Egypt Sends Invitations for Signing Ceremony of
Palestinian Reconciliation, on Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Published yesterday (updated) 28/04/2011, 19:51 (Ma’an) --
The Egyptian government sent invitations on Thursday to Palestinian
political parties for the signing of the Fat'h-Hamas reconciliation
agreement, in a ceremony to be held next Tuesday in Cairo.
The
event will be used to set an implementation mechanism for the unity
deal, to be approved by all political groups.
Factions welcomed
the invitations, and prepared to send delegations to Egypt.
Walid
Al-Awad, politburo member of the leftist Palestine’s People’s Party,
told Ma’an that Fat'h-Hamas agreement, and planned deal-signing by all
political groups, is the “beginning of the road toward ending division.”
Ratification by the different factions is necessary to “protect” the
deal, he said, by “cutting off the road to any attempt to obstruct it or
to backtrack on it.”
Awad said he “expected that Israel and the
United States will escalate their campaign against the unity agreement,”
and called for all Palestinian parties to be “cautious and to insist to
go forward until national unity is achieved.”
He thanked Egypt
for sponsoring the unity talks, adding that the PPP party
secretary-general Bassam Al-Salhi will be heading the party’s delegation
to Cairo.
The next steps will demand “Palestinian political will
and wisdom” to take forward the “battle” for recognition of a
Palestinian state to the UN Security Council, Awad added.
The
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine confirmed they received
an invitation, saying their delegation will be headed by DFLP Secretary
General Nayef Hawatmeh.
Yaser Wadeiyah, the representative of
independent politicians, said the group also had an invitation and will
leave for Cairo at the beginning of next week.
Secretary General
of the National Reconciliation Committee Iyad Al-Sarraj said ratifying
the agreement will “bring the Palestinian political system back to life,
based on democracy and the wellbeing of the Palestinian people.”
The Egypt ceremony will “open the door for political partnership,” he
added.
The committee praised the role of the Egyptian leadership
in achieving the deal, and the role of the youth, political parties and
other figures, for “insisting on empowering unity and ending division,”
Al-Sarraj said.
The reconciliation committee has made “intensive
contacts between all of the parties over the past two years to achieve
reconciliation,” he noted.
Also Thursday, Hamas leader Ismail
Radwan said that a final reconciliation deal would be signed in the
presence of party leaders as a "practical response" to Israeli threats
attempting to derail the process.
"We can best deal with the
threats by signing and implementing the agreement," Radwan said in a
statement which congratulated Egypt on its work in mediating the deal.
Details of the deal began to emerge Wednesday evening from
Egypt, where talks were taking place between rival Hamas and Fatah
factions, with reports that a technocratic government would oversee the
transition to full national elections within a year of the agreement's
signing.
Hamas leader in exile Khaled Mesha'al and Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas are also expected to approve the deal
at the Tuesday ceremony.
Wednesday's deal came after 18 months of
fruitless talks.
Following their sweep to power in the 2006
elections, international decisions to boycott the party and an attempt
to cobble together a unity government in 2007, Hamas forces clashed with
Fat'h and eventually split into separate governments, one in the West
Bank and one in the Gaza Strip.
Several agreements were
announced and later collapsed in subsequent years, with both sides
reluctant to relinquish control in their respective territories.
Revolutions overthrowing unrepresentative regimes across the Middle
East took root for Palestinians in a call end the rivalry, and since
March 15, protesters demanding Palestinian unity came onto the streets,
camped out in public squares, and held hunger strikes.
The
deal-makers have had to address skepticism from the Palestinian street
that the new initiative is a media stunt, and condemnation from
politicians in Israel and the US.
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