Egyptian mediators agreed to hold a meeting between opposing Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah, a Palestinian official involved in the talks said on Wednesday.
Iyad As-Sarraj, a prominent Gaza psychiatrist who heads the nonpartisan Palestinian Reconciliation Committee, said Egypt accepted a suggestion from the group during a meeting in Cairo on Tuesday night to hold a three-day workshop with Hamas, Fatah, and other factions.
The summit would address Egypt’s recent proposal to end the internecine rivalry. Fatah signed the plan and declared the ball in Hamas' court, but Gaza's leading party refused to sign first on account of the Palestinian Authority failure to adequately push forward a UN discussion of the Goldstone report on the last war on Gaza, but later said it would sign as long as a few changes were made to the conciliation document.
A Hamas delegation was prepared to travel to Cairo for discussions, but Egypt, which had said the document was final, never invited the group to discuss changes. Talks have been stalled since.
As-Sarraj said the committee sent a copy of its suggestion to President Mahmoud Abbas. The committee hopes to meet the president as soon as possible, he said.
Hamas and Fatah did not publicly respond to the proposal.
Hamas officials Khalil Al-Hayya, Jamal Abu Hashim, and Ayman Taha attended Tuesday’s meeting in Cairo along with members of the Reconciliation Committee, including As-Sarraj, Kamalin Sha’ath, Na’im Al-Ghalban, Muheisin Abu Ramadan, and Mamoun Abu Shahla.
After winning parliamentary elections in 2006, Hamas took full control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, routing Fatah and causing President Mahmoud Abbas to dissolve a unity government.
As-Sarraj said the Hamas delegation responded positively to the suggestion of a multi-faction summit, but they needed to consult Hamas’ other leaders first.
However, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmad Aboul Gheit said in an interview published on Tuesday that efforts to bring Hamas and Fatah together were at a standstill.
“The efforts that are made for conciliation among the Palestinians are somehow stopped,” he told the pan-Arab daily Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat
“There is a need to wait for some time so that the Palestinians will reach to a conclusion … they need to restore some logic and balance in their positions,” he was also quoted as saying.
“Their [Palestinians’] aspiration of establishing a state … will not be achieved if the division continued between the West Bank and Gaza,” the foreign minister also said.
In the wide-ranging interview Aboul Gheit also said the US plans to restart final status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
He also responded to reports that Egypt is building a wall along Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip, saying that Egypt is “free to do whatever it wishes inside its territory” in order to ensure its security.
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