'Instead of making peace with Israel, Abbas making peace with Hamas'
Netanyahu bemoans fact Abbas keeps stacking additional conditions during peace talks; Fatah and Hamas reach an agreement to form a unity government within the "next five weeks."
Instead of making peace with Israel, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is making peace with Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday morning in a meeting with Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz.
"He has to choose. Does he want peace with Hamas or peace with Israel. You can have one but not the other. I hope he chooses peace (with Israel), so far he hasn't done so," Netanyahu said, repeating comments he made on Monday.
He also bemoaned the fact that every time Israel and the Palestinians sit at the negotiating table, Abbas "stacks on additional condition which he knows that Israel cannot give."
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Early Wednesday morning, Palestinian officials said Fatah and Hamas have reached an agreement in principle to form a unity government within the "next five weeks."
A Palestinian official who attended Tuesday's late-night meeting said there had been an "agreement in principle" on forming a "government of experts," a term for a cabinet staffed by technocrats rather than politicians.
The agreement, between members of the PLO and Hamas, was reached following talks in Gaza City which began on Tuesday evening, a member of the PLO who wished to remain anonymous told AFP.
"There has also been progress on the holding of future elections and the composition of the PLO," said the Palestinian official without giving further details.
Reconciliation talks were expected to continue on Wednesday.
But Palestinian hopes of reconciliation have been dashed before. Since 2011, Hamas and Fatah have failed to implement an Egyptian-brokered unity deal because of disputes over power-sharing and the handling of conflict with Israel.
An agreement, paving the way for elections and a national strategy towards Israel, could not only give Abbas a measure of sovereignty in Gaza but also help Hamas, hemmed in by an Israeli-Egyptian blockade, become less isolated.
Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, told reporters on Tuesday that if peace talks did not continue, Israel would be obliged to take on the administrative and financial burden of governing Palestinian areas.
Kerry revived the peace talks in July after a nearly three-year hiatus, with the aim of ending a decades-old conflict and establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
The negotiations plunged into crisis this month when Israel refused to carry out the last of four waves of prisoner releases unless it received assurances the Palestinian leadership would continue the talks beyond the end of April.
After Israel failed to free the prisoners, Abbas responded by signing 15 international treaties, including the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war and occupations. Israel condemned the move as a unilateral step toward statehood.
Hamas is adamantly opposed to negotiations with Israel, that have recently reached an impasse with each side refusing the demands of the other to continue negotiations beyond the April 29 deadline.
