Dweik: Egypt and other parties pressed Abbas not to end the Palestinian division

[ 23/06/2010 - 04:37 PM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Dr. Aziz Dweik, the speaker of the Palestinian legislative council (PLC), stated that the Palestinian and Arab efforts made recently to reconcile Hamas and Fatah reached a deadlock and accused the Egyptian regime and other external parties of making Mahmoud Abbas renege on his intention to achieve national reconciliation.

"In fact, there is no hope to achieve Palestinian reconciliation for the time being," Dr. Dweik told Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper on Wednesday.

He explained that Abbas at first told Palestinian businessman and mediator Munib Al-Masri to eliminate all the obstacles that prevents Hamas from signing Egypt's reconciliation paper, but later when Masri tabled a vision that could have made a breakthrough in the efforts made, Abbas said to him that "he cannot achieve the reconciliation without Hamas signing on Egypt's reconciliation paper first."

The speaker added that the proposal made by Masri was similar to the one made earlier by Palestinian premier Ismail Haneyya during his meeting with Arab League head Amr Moussa.

He elaborated that Haneyya and Masri suggested in their proposal that inter-Palestinian understandings on Hamas's remarks on Egypt's paper should be reached first and then approved by Egypt and the Arab League before the signing.

The speaker underlined that Abbas, who previously called on Masri to remove any problem hindering the reconciliation with Hamas, backpedaled on his position and insisted that Hamas must sign the paper first, affirming that Egypt, the US, Israel and other countries were behind this change in Abbas's position.


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