Doha-Hosted Talks Fail to Reconcile Divisive Palestinian Fatah and Hamas

Gaza, 13 Ramadan 1437/19 June 2016(MINA) – The mainstream Palestinian movements, Fatah and Hamas, declared on Saturday failure of reconciliation talks aimed at ironing out differences between the two organizations.

Spokesman of the Islamic group, Hamas, Sami Abu Zahri, charged in a statement that Fatah was responsible for failure of the Doha-hosted talks for backing down on accords that had been reached on a number of files.

Fatah is primarily responsible for failure of the discussions due to the PLO’s “commitment to its manifesto which recognizes Israel,” Abu Zahri was quoted by KUNA as saying.

For his part, Jibril Rajoub, member of Fatah’s Central Committee, said in a statement to the local media that Hamas “should decide whether they will remain part of the Palestinian people or an extension of others,” accusing the group of having controversial external affiliations.

“Hamas movement has not understood developments in the region, failure of the political Islam and predominance of the national trend in many Arab countries, namely Tunisia,” Rajoub said.

The Qatari capital had hosted the reconciliation talks since several days ago. They aimed to tackle nine years of divisions between the two most influential Palestinian groups. (T/R07/R01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)