Haaretz
Kislev 28, 5767
A call by Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud
Abbas for early elections was a "very negative" move so soon after the
last Palestinian elections, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on
Monday.
The appeal for new elections came as Abbas and Palestinian
Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, whose Hamas movement defeated Abbas's
once-dominant Fatah in parliamentary elections held last January, "had
begun to work together in trying to take positive steps," Erdogan
said.
The call for early elections "in such a short period of time
did not fit well with the current situation, and it is very negative in
that sense," the Turkish leader said during a visit to UN
headquarters.
He said the biggest problem with the January
elections was that the will of the Palestinian people had not been
respected after the victory by Hamas, which refuses to renounce violence
or recognize Israel's right to exist.
His comment was an apparent
slap at Israel and Western powers led by the United States, which have cut
off all direct aid to the Palestinian government.
"If by not
respecting the will of the Palestinian people, people think that they can
move forward, I don't think that that would be the right way to move
forward," he said.
The aid cutoff has led to a virtual collapse of
the Palestinian economy and the Palestinian Authority due to an inability
to collect taxes or pay the salaries of civil servants including security
personnel.
Erdogan also criticized supporters of the Palestinians
for providing too little economic help after direct aid was cut
off.
Internal Palestinian tensions are at their highest in a decade
after the collapse of months of talks between the Hamas Islamist movement
and Fatah on forging a government of national unity.
Abbas, who
wants a negotiated peace settlement with Israel, said on Saturday that
parliamentary and presidential polls should be held at the earliest
opportunity.
But Abbas appeared to leave the door open to the
ruling Hamas by saying efforts should be renewed to form a unity
government that could lead to a lifting of Western sanctions.
Hamas
accused Abbas of launching a coup and said the chairman had no authority
to call early elections.