Fatah and Hamas leaders announced late Tuesday that the fourth round of Palestinian reconciliation dialogue had ended in Cairo, and that they agreed to resume talks on May 16-17, DPA reported today. The talks were held Monday and Tuesday in Cairo on four major issues: forming a unity government, rebuilding security apparatus, reforming the PLO and agreeing on a system for new elections. "MAAN" news agency quoted Mahmoud al-Zahar, a Hamas negotiator, as saying that the decision to postpone the dialogue "was made to enable the two sides to consult their leaderships over the new Egyptian ideas and proposals." Egypt has been mediating between the two groups to end their differences on substantial issues related to forming a unity government with the goal of ending the current rift between Gaza and the West Bank. "The issues of security and Palestine Liberation Organization were the two issues that dominated the dialogue in Cairo on Monday and Tuesday," al-Zahar said. Among other issues debated during the two-day dialogue in Cairo was merging all security forces for Gaza and the West Bank into professional security forces. "The issue of forming a unity government hasn't been debated in this round of dialogue," said Fatah negotiator Azzam el-Ahmad. He said that breakthroughs were achieved on the issues of elections and security, and conferees agreed that the PLO "is the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and the reference for any national activity, mainly the implementation of the 2005 Cairo agreement." El-Ahmad said that the two movements "agreed to form a temporary joint national committee" to be headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Fatah party, with the mission of reforming the Palestinian National Council by elections.
