Published on web at: 2008-10-28 23:00:01 +05:30. Section: Muslim World section.
Egypt has presented Hamas with a proposal to solve the inter-factional Palestinian crisis and form a unity government, with a package of sanctions if the proposal is rejected. “The Egyptian paper calls for the resignation of the Gaza-based government of Ismail Haniyeh and the Salam Fayyad cabinet in the West Bank,” IslamOnline.net cites a well-placed Egyptian source as saying. “It also calls for forming a unity government of independents or technocrats to be acceptable to Fatah, Hamas and other factions. The mission of this government will be ending the siege on the Gaza Strip, preparing for legislative and presidential elections, revamping the Palestinian security agencies and reforming the Palestine Liberation Organisation.”
The paper was presented to a Hamas delegation led by the group’s deputy political chief Musa Abu-Marzuk during a meeting with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.
“This was a good meeting, maybe this will prepare us to reach reconciliation. It was a good step,” Abu-Marzuk told journalists following the meeting. The talks came after Egypt hosted a string of meetings with a dozen Palestinian factions, including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah group, over the past two months to form a national unity government. “We agree with the Egyptian vision to form a unity government uniting Palestinians and to ... study how to get from this phase to the next one,” Abu-Marzuk said. “There will be additional meetings, bilateral (with Egypt) and trilateral (with Fatah) in this month,” he said, without giving exact dates.
