Palestinian leaders hold inconclusive unity talks
Source: Reuters
(Corrects days of next meetings to Monday and Tuesday in para 7) By Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA, March 4 (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held inconclusive talks on forming a unity government with Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Sunday and officials said the process may take longer than expected. Haniyeh's ruling Hamas faction and Fatah headed by Abbas signed a power-sharing deal last month in Saudi Arabia that stemmed factional fighting but failed to meet Western conditions to rescind a financially crippling aid embargo. "We have not completed the consultations today. They will continue over the coming days," Ghazi Hamad, a cabinet spokesman with Hamas, told reporters after the leaders met for several hours in Gaza City. Hamad said officials hoped to meet a constitutional deadline of March 21, the end of a five-week period allotted for negotiations. Earlier forecasts had suggested the process could be finished by the end of this week. "We hope to conclude it before the end of the constitutional period," Hamad said. Abbas adviser Nabil Abu Rdainah said: "The government is coming along. There is no serious problem in the consultations." He said another week of talks would be needed. Abbas and Haniyeh were expected to hold further meetings in Gaza on Monday and Tuesday, officials said. Palestinian sources close to the talks told Reuters at least three main issues had not been resolved in Sunday's meeting, the main one being who would serve as interior minister, a position that controls the powerful security services. One source said Abbas did not endorse Hamas's candidate for the job, retired general Hamouda Jerwan. The parties also failed to agree on who would be named deputy prime minister or whether a Syrian-based Palestinian faction should be allowed to join the government, sources said. A final political platform has yet to be drafted, they added. Abbas wants to ensure the new government's policy matches a deal reached in Mecca under which past Israeli-Palestinian peace deals will be "respected". The Mecca agreement falls short of demands by a quartet of world powers that a Palestinian government recognise Israel and renounce violence as conditions for removing an aid boycott imposed when Hamas came to power a year ago. Hamas, an Islamist group, insists it will not formally recognise Israel and its 1988 founding charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. Its leaders have offered a long-term truce with Israel in exchange for a viable state in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
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