Ramallah - Palestinian President Mahmoud Monday rejected a
declaration signed between his own Fatah party and the rival Hamas
movement in Sana'a, Yemen, in which the sides agreed to renew talks
after months of a total
Nimr Hammad, a senior political advisor to Abbas, said that Azzam
Ahmad, who signed the agreement on behalf of Abbas and Fatah in
Yemen, had not been authorized to sign it.
Ahmad should have first presented the four-line agreement to Abbas
for approval before signing it, he told Voice of Palestine Radio.
However, Ahmad told al-Jazeera that he was in touch with Abbas
over the telephone and that the Palestinian president knew exactly
what was going on. He defended the agreement, saying what he signed
was in line with the instructions he had received from Abbas.
Ahmed headed the Fatah delegation sent to Yemen by Abbas to debate
an initiative proposed by Yemeni President Ali Adullah Saleh aimed at
resolving a months-long internal Palestinian political standoff.
The power struggle first emerged after Hamas beat Abbas' Fatah in
January 2006 parliamentary elections, and culminated in the radical
Islamic movement violently seizing sole control of the Gaza Strip in
June 2007.
The seven-point Yemeni initiative calls for restoring the status
quo in Gaza to before the Hamas take-over, while holding early
legislative and presidential elections.
After days of Yemen-mediated indirect talks that began Thursday
and initially broke off with no results Saturday, the Fatah
delegation and deputy Hamas chief Moussa Abu Marzouk signed a
declaration Sunday in which they agreed to resume talks on the basis
of the Yemeni initiative.
'The Yemeni plan will be used as a framework to resume dialogue
between the two movements to return the Palestinian situation to
their conditions before the Gaza events,' said the declaration, read
out by Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu-Bakr al-Qerbi at a joint signing
ceremony in Sana'a.
Abbas, however, wants immediate implementation of the clause in
the Yemeni plan calling on Hamas to reverse its Gaza takeover, rather
than an open-ended series of talks on the initiative, his spokesman
Nabil Abu Rudeineh told reporters Sunday. He was reading from a
written statement soon after the agreement was signed and as Abbas
was meeting with visiting US Vice President Dick Cheney.
Both the United States and Israel oppose resumption of talks
between Abbas and Hamas, which they have listed as a terrorist
organization.
A senior Israeli government source told Israel Radio on condition
of anonymity Monday that Israel would stop its negotiations with
Abbas if his Fatah movement formed another unity government with
Hamas.
A previous Hamas-led unity government, which was dismissed by
Abbas after the Gaza takeover, refused to recognize Israel's right to
exist, renounce violence and recognize past interim peace deals
calling for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel had therefore refused to engage in peace talks.
Abu Rudeineh said Abbas had accepted the Yemeni plan as a ground
for implementation and not as ground for starting talks with Hamas.
Hamas insists on first holding talks with Fatah and the Abbas-led
Palestinian Authority, before it agrees to restore the situation in
Gaza back to the pre-June 14 takeover.
A Hamas spokesman nevertheless said in Gaza Sunday that the two
sides were to resume their talks in the Palestinian areas on April 5.
Palestinian analysts blamed the lack of clarity by Abbas to his
delegation in Yemen as the cause for the confusion.
Hani Masri, a newspaper columnist, blamed 'the absence of a clear
strategy' and of clear instructions from Abbas to Ahmad for the
confusion.
The incident could further hurt Fatah's and Abbas' standing, he
warned to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
A recent Palestinian public opinion poll indicated Hamas had made
dramatic gains in popularity at the expense of Fatah and Abbas over
the past three months, with Hamas leader Ismail Haniya closing a two-
digit gap and even passing Abbas by one percentage point if
presidential elections were held today.
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