Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said on Wednesday he was ready to go to Gaza this week for talks with Hamas about ending the split and forming a interim government. Abbas, leader of the secular Fatah movement, said he was ready to go to Gaza "tomorrow" for talks with the enclave's Islamist rulers about ending the bitter split that has poisoned relations within the Palestinian national movement.
"I am ready to go to Gaza tomorrow to end the division and form a government of independent national figures to start preparing for presidential, legislative and (Palestinian) National Council elections within six months," he said in a speech to members of the PLO Central Council.
Pressed to clarify Abbas's comments, his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said the aim was to meet Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya with a view to forming an interim government of "neutral, national figures" in what was understood to mean independent politicians not directly affiliated with Hamas or Fatah. This interim government's "main task will be preparing for presidential and legislative elections, and elections to the Palestinian National Council within six months," he told AFP.
At the start of a two-day meeting of the PLO Central Council, a legislative body in which Hamas holds the majority, Abbas urged Haniya to make arrangements for the visit, which he said would happen "in the next few days" so that the two could "turn the page on this black and shameful division."
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