Haaretz
Shvat 4, 5767
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and
Hamas leader Khaled Meshal held talks in Damascus on Sunday to try to ease
the Palestinian political crisis and internecine fighting.
Abbas
called the talks "fruitful" and said negotiations over the formation of a
Palestinian unity government would continue.
Meshal said
disagreements with Abbas remain, but will be sorted out through continued
dialogue.
Hamas and Fatah officials confirmed Sunday that Abbas and
Meshal would meet, following Syrian intervention to ensure that the
meeting would go ahead.
Izzat al-Rishq, a senior Hamas official,
said the Islamist group did not expect Sunday's talks to result in an
agreement on a unity government.
"The main difference on the
government's manifesto persists. The meeting will convene to affirm that
the two sides are committed to continue dialogue and reject the use of
violence and spilling of Palestinian blood," he said.
Senior
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, an ally of Abbas, told reporters: "Our
message is forbidding infighting, stopping instigation and the formation
of a national unity government."
"The meeting between Abu Mazen
[Abbas] and Abu al-Waleed [Meshal] will take place tonight," Fatah
official Saeb Erekat told reporters after Abbas met Syrian Vice President
Farouk Shara.
"Our message is forbidding infighting, stopping
instigation and the formation of a national unity government."
The
meeting between the two scheduled for late Saturday was postponed after
officials failed to reconcile differences over a unity government and how
it would deal with key Western demands.
"We are seeing Syrian
efforts at the highest level to convene this meeting," Hamas politburo
member Izzat al-Rishq said. "Syrian officials are doing their best to
bring the views of both sides closer."
Shara held separate talks
with both Abbas and Meshal on Sunday, witnesses said.
A senior
Hamas official said earlier Sunday the crucial meeting would not take
place and blamed the moderate Abbas for the breakdown of the talks.
"The possibility of a meeting today [Sunday] has become
nonexistent," said Moussa Abu Marzuk, deputy head of Hamas' politburo.
Hamas had shown a lot of "flexibility" in trying to resolve
disputes between the two factions, but "external factors... caused this
latest crisis," he said.
Division of power
Also
Sunday, sources involved in the Palestinian unity government talks told
Haaretz that Hamas has agreed to the appointment of an independent
interior minister.
Fatah and Hamas negotiators also agreed to the
appointment of Fatah's Salam Fayed as finance minister and Ziad Abu Amr as
foreign minister. Hamas had initially wanted to keep the interior
portfolio, which controls the security forces, for itself.
Abbas
warned Saturday that if the unity talks with Hamas failed, he would call
new elections.
"Either there will be a unity government or there
will be elections," he said.
Abbas did meet Saturday with Syrian
President Bashar Assad, who expressed his support for Palestinian unity.