Abbas, Hamas leader hold first talks since unity deal

AFP

Doha

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held “positive” talks with Hamas leader Khalid Mishal in Doha yesterday in the first meeting since their movements signed a surprise unity deal last month.

The meeting began shortly after Abbas held talks with HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, a senior Palestinian official told AFP in Ramallah.

“Abbas and Mishal held a long meeting on Monday afternoon in Doha to discuss the latest Palestinian developments, including the reconciliation agreement and creating a positive atmosphere in which to achieve it,” a Hamas statement said.

“The meeting was positive, with both leaders expressing a serious willingness to turn over a new leaf, based on national partnership,” it added.

The exiled Hamas chief has been headquartered in Doha for more than two years after leaving his previous base in Damascus because of the Syrian civil war.

The last time the two leaders met face-to-face was in Cairo in January 2013.

Abbas’s Fatah movement, which dominates the Palestine Liberation Organisation, has been locked in years of rivalry with Mishal’s Hamas that climaxed when the Islamist movement seized Gaza in 2007.

Earlier reconciliation efforts have failed, but on April 23, the PLO and Hamas announced a deal under which they would work together to form a new government of political independents.

Hamas said it might incorporate some 3,000 members of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces to help police Gaza on a temporary basis.

“There is a clause addressing the security situation, including... administrative arrangements for 3,000 members of Ramallah’s security apparatus to work as part of Gaza security,” Hamas government secretary Abdel Salam Siyyam said in a statement on Sunday.

He said the move would be for an “interim period”, without saying how long it would be.

News of the April deal provoked an angry response from Israel, which said it would not negotiate with any Palestinian government backed by Hamas, putting the final nail in the coffin of the latest round of US-brokered peace talks.

But an Israeli general yesterday said the deployment of security forces loyal to Abbas in Gaza could help prevent rocket and other attacks.

“I welcome this agreement, which could bring about change, even positive results, … ,” Brigadier General Micky Edelstein, who is in charge of the Israeli army’s Gaza division, told military radio. Page 11