Arab ministers take no side between Fatah, Hamas

Arab League ministers convening in Cairo tell rival Palestinian factions they must resume internal dialogue without delay; say they recognize Abbas as president but also legitimacy of Hamas-controlled Palestinian Legislative Council
Reuters

Arab foreign ministers steered clear of taking sides between Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas on Thursday, at their first meeting to review the state of Middle East peace talks since the US presidential election.

The ministers told Palestinian groups they should resume without delay an internal dialogue meant to bring the West Bank and Gaza Strip back under a single Palestinian authority.

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They also called for an immediate end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza and promised to send food, medicines and medical supplies to Gaza immediately.

The Islamist group Hamas has run the Gaza Strip since defeating Fatah forces there in July. The Fatah group of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas runs the West Bank.

After a late-night meeting at Arab League headquarters in Cairo, the ministers said in a resolution they recognized Abbas as president but they also allowed legitimacy to the Palestinian Legislative Council, where Hamas is dominant.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the resolution did not do enough to end the blockade of Gaza and failed to overcome the obstacles to Palestinian reconciliation.

"Such a meeting in such catastrophic conditions that Gaza has gone through must have merited an official Arab decision to completely end the siege imposed on Gaza and open the Rafah crossing (to Egypt)," he said.

But he added: "Hamas will deal positively with any Arab effort that would secure the requirements for the success of dialogue and push towards ending internal Palestinian division."

Abbas aide Yasser Abed Rabbo welcomed the resolution. "It gives Hamas another chance to pull itself together and get out of the isolation it imposed on itself," he said.

The ministers said they could not accept and were deeply disturbed that a dialogue conference originally set for Nov. 10 did not take place as planned. But they did not hold any of the parties responsible for preventing it from happening.

'We won't hold any party responsible'

Egypt called off that session of dialogue after Hamas insisted that Fatah must first set free jailed Hamas members.

Diplomats say Hamas' position annoyed Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which have generally favored Fatah and are wary of Hamas' links either with Iran or with opposition Sunni Islamists such as Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood movement.

The ministers added: "We warn of the gravity of not responding to efforts to achieve Palestinian reconciliation and of the serious repercussions which that could have for the parties that stand in the way of national accord."

The resolution also did not take sides overtly in the disagreement over the timing of Palestinian elections. Fatah plans presidential and parliamentary elections in April 2009, while Hamas says that Abbas' presidential term ends on Jan. 9 but that parliamentary elections can wait.

The Arab ministers said only that presidential and parliamentary elections should take place in all Palestinian territory simultaneously and they asked Abbas to remain president until the elections..

At the start of the meeting Yemeni Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi said the ministers had not come to hold any party responsible but rather to reunite the Palestinians.

Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem of Syria, which supports Hamas, said he wished that "the other side" had had an opportunity to present its point of view at the meeting.

The pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat said Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit objected, saying that only governments could take part in Arab League meetings.