A new round of talks on Monday, hosted by Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, which are designed to ease tensions between rival factions, made significant progress, participants said.
Aziz Dweik, the Hamas speaker of the Ramallah-based Parliament, told reporters after two hours of talks that he believed agreement on a common approach to a series of crises was within reach of his governing Islamist movement Hamas and Abbas’s own Fatah faction.
”The dialogue has been taking place in a positive manner and the participants have made progress,” said Dweik.
”I think that we can reach an agreement within the 10 days laid down by President Abbas. That’s very possible.”
Another participant in the talks, independent MP Mustapha Barghuti, was also upbeat about the prospects of an agreement.
”The atmosphere was very positive and we are beginning to draw close to an agreement,” said Barghuti, who was runner-up to Abbas in a presidential election last year.
Their comments came on the second day of talks of a so-called ”higher committee” set up in the aftermath of a two-day conference in which leaders of the two factions aired their differences as well as appealed for unity.
Hamas and Fatah have been at loggerheads over control of the security forces, as well as on the approach to the conflict with Israel.
While Abbas is committed to a negotiating a final peace agreement with Israel, Hamas refuses to recognise the Jewish state or renounce violence — a stance which has led to the West imposing economic sanctions.
The Palestinian Authority president dropped a political bombshell last Thursday when he announced that he would call a referendum in 10 days to endorse a programme drawn up by imprisoned faction leaders unless Hamas and Fatah settled their differences.
The document at the centre of the possible referendum advocates a national-unity government and Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including east Jerusalem.
The talks have so far all been conducted in Ramallah, which has left Hamas leaders, such as Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, unable to attend as a result of Israeli-imposed travel restrictions.
In addition to Hamas, two other hard-line factions — Islamic Jihad and the tiny Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) — called in a joint statement for the venue of the talks to be switched to Gaza City. — Sapa-AFP