Fatah, Hamas to form unity government

Risingbd Desk: The Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) has agreed to form a unity government with rival organisation Hamas, a new agency has learned.

The agreement was reached late on Tuesday after a three-day negotiation in the Russian capital Moscow.

The two organisations will form a new National Council, which will include Palestinians in exile, and hold elections.

"Today the conditions for (such an initiative) are better than ever," said Azzam al-Ahmad, a senior Fatah official said.

The deal also includes the Islamic Jihad group, which had not been involved in negotiations for a long time.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party and Hamas have been at loggerheads since the latter seized Gaza in a near civil war in 2007, after it won the 2006 legislative elections.

Last year the Palestinian government postponed the first municipal polls in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in 10 years after the high court ruled they should be held only in the Fatah-run West Bank.

The last time the Palestinians staged elections in which both Hamas and Fatah took part was in 2006.

The Palestinian representatives also met on Monday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and asked him to dissuade incoming US President Donald Trump from carrying out a campaign pledge to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Source: Agencies

risingbd/ Jan 18, 2017/Mukul