COUNTDOWN FOR PALESTINIAN UNITY GOV’T FORMATION BEGINS, OFFICIAL SAYS
Gaza City, 20 Rajab 1435/19 Mei 2014 (MINA) – Member of the Palestinian reconciliation committee in the occupied West Bank Khalil Assaf said the unity government will be announced within days.
In a phone call made with Assaf on Sunday, he said the ministers of the government will take the constitutional oath to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, when he comes back from his trip by the end of this week. Al-Ray Media Agency quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.
Senior Fatah member and reconciliation officiator Azzam al-Ahmad is to arrive to the besieged Gaza this week to inform the Palestinian factions about the final Fateh naming of the interim government ministers, Assaf pointed out.
The ‘interim leadership framework of the PLO’ will be held in Cairo on a later date, he added.
Bassem Naim, an adviser to Hamas’ premier for the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, said a senior member of President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement, which dominates the PLO, would meet with Hamas officials in Gaza this week to conclude negotiations.
Azzam al-Ahmad is “arriving in Gaza on Wednesday and Thursday to meet with the Hamas reconciliation delegation to hold consultations,” Naim told .
“We expect the government to be announced by (Abbas) early the following week,” he said, and will then be presented to the Palestinian parliament for a vote of confidence.
On April 23, Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas and National Liberation Movement Fateh signed a unity pact that envisages the establishment of a unity government within five weeks.
The parties agreed on shedules to implement the previously signed -but suspended- agreements in Cairo and Doha.
Unity government formation is a milestone step in the implementation of the unity agreement as it shall work on rejunivating the Gazan economy, which has been plagued by an eight-year-long blockade imposed by ‘Israel’ after Hamas rose to power in 2006. (T/P02/P04)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
