http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1060610.html
Last update - 00:16 01/01/2009
Abbas: No reconciliation talks until all Palestinian groups accept PLO
authority
By Reuters
Tags: israel news, fatah
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday that dialogue with his
rivals in the Islamist movement Hamas was impossible unless they recognise the
supremacy of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
"Now we say ... no dialogue with those who reject the Palestine
Liberation Organization," Abbas told a news conference in the Egyptian capital
Cairo.
"They must admit without equivocation or ambiguity that the organization
is the sole and only representative of the Palestinian people. Then there will
be dialogue," he added.
Egypt last week proposed February 22 as the date for the start of a
dialogue between Palestinian groups, several of the groups said in reports
published on Tuesday.
Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit of Egypt, which has been mediating
between the groups, told reporters: "We will invite the Palestinian groups. We
hope we will succeed in this in the third week or at the end of the third week
of February."
Egypt came close to organizing a Palestinian dialogue in November but the
Islamist group Hamas pulled out a few days before it was due to begin, saying
the rival Fatah group has failed to meet its demand that it free Hamas
prisoners.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the European Union see Palestinian reconciliation
as one of the keys to progress towards an end to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade
of Gaza and towards a possible resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
The main parties are Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, and the Fatah
group of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who since June 2007 has
controlled only the West Bank.
The two sides agree in principle on the idea of a national unity
government for the Palestinian Authority, but they disagree on whether Abbas
still has a mandate to govern and on whether armed struggle is still a
legitimate strategy for dealing with Israel.
They also disagree on the terms for reopening the Rafah crossing between
Gaza and Egypt. Abbas wants his forces to resume control there, but Hamas
opposes that idea
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