RAMALLAH – A prominent Palestinian figure on Monday said that the next two week s will witness “positive developments” with regard to the national reconciliation talks. Palestinian billionaire Munib Al-Masri, who heads the Palestinian National Coalition of independent figures and Al-Mustaqbal (The Future) party, said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas “is ready to implement the Cairo agreement and the Doha recommendations.” Al-Masri said following a meeting with the deposed Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyyeh in Gaza Strip that all parties “are waiting the decision of the Hamas's politburo with regard to this issue.” He called on Palestinians to pressure the Fatah and Hamas movements “to implement the agreement as soon as possible.” Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, and seized the Gaza Strip by force a year later and kept the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) confined to the West Bank. Al-Maris's remarks come a day after high-level Fatah delegation met in the Gaza Strip with Haniyeh and discussed with him ways of ending the rivalry between the two parties. Haniyeh was quoted as saying during the meeting that his government has taken a “strategic decision” to achieve reconciliation with Fatah. Following the meeting, Nabil Sha'ath, a Palestinian negotiator and also a member of Abbas' Fatah Central Committee, and Khalil Al-Hayyeh, a Gaza-based Hamas lawmaker, announced that they will work jointly to prepare a reconciliation deal that will end their seven- year political division. Sha'ath praised Hamas for taking real measures on the ground toward ending the crisis, including permitting senior Fatah officials to return to the Gaza Strip. He said that the coming days would witness additional and positive steps to implement previous reconciliation agreements between Fatah and Hamas. Sha'ath reiterated Fatah's stance that there could be no Palestinian state without the Gaza Strip. Fatah and Hamas held talks in Cairo in May 2011 regarding the formation a unity government that would pave the way for parliamentary and presidential elections within 12 months. But implementation of the accord stalled over the make-up of the interim government, and a February 2012 deal signed by Abbas and Hamas Politburo Chief Khaled Mish'al in Doha in the presence of Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani in 2012 also to form a unity government that would pave the way for new presidential and parliamentary elections. The agreement stipulates that Abbas would serve as prime minister in addition to his job as PA president. The deal was opposed by top Hamas officials in Gaza.
