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Palestinian factions disagree on gov't formation, elections

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-03-15 09:55

"Fatah tries to draw Hamas to recognize the Israeli occupation by putting pressure on us that the commitments of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) must be respected," said Salah al-Bardaweel, a Hamas lawmaker.

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"The PLO's and Fatah's recognition of Israel brought nothing but more catastrophes by building settlements and installing roadblocks in West Bank and denying the Palestinian people's rights," he said.

Fatah spokesman Ahmed Abdel Rahman said in a statement sent to reporters that Fatah doesn't want Hamas to recognize Israel, "but it wants a government that is accepted by the international community" to end the siege.

Rivalry between Fatah and Hamas, who won a parliamentary election ion 2006, have worsened since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in a week of deadly fighting in June 2007, limiting Abbas' clout to the West Bank.

Hamas and Fatah have been holding reconciliation talks in Cairo since late February to form a unity government in order to settle the widening split between the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the Fatah-ruled West Bank.

Meanwhile, reconciliation negotiators agreed to prohibit fighting or use weapons to settle internal troubles, a Palestinian academic said on Saturday.

Yasser al-Wadia, the independent academic who joined the reconciliation committee, said his committee made remarkable progress in its work to come to that agreement.

He added that his committee also agreed on mechanisms to compensate people who lost or suffered due to the political split between the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the Fatah-dominated West Bank.

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