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Hamas official: 15,000 PA forces won't return to Gaza anytime soon
IMRA ^ | 7-19-09

Posted on 07/19/2009 1:34:39 PM PDT by SJackson

Hamas official: 15,000 PA forces won't return to Gaza anytime soon

Published yesterday (updated) 18/07/2009 21:16 www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=212715

Gaza - Ma'an - Fatah has demanded that 15,000 Palestinian Authority security forces be permitted to return to the Gaza Strip, Hamas leader Mahmoud Az-Zahhar said on Friday.

The official rejected the alleged demand during a weekly sermon at the Al-Qassam Mosque in central Gaza on Friday, saying that Hamas would not allow the Fatah-backed "death squads" to return to "what has become a no-man's land."

PA forces were sent out or fled from Gaza when Hamas and its security men gained control of the Strip following brief but violent clashes throughout the occupied Palestinian territories during the summer of 2007.

Nevertheless, Az-Zahhar insisted that Hamas has shown "clear flexibility" over the return of PA forces under the right circumstances, but said it was impossible to allow them to regain any control in the immediate future.

He added that a delegation of Hamas officials would depart for Cairo on Friday for a scheduled meeting with Egyptian negotiators on Saturday, which plans to host both leading Palestinian groups for reconciliation talks aimed at resolving the two-year internal dispute by a deadline set for 25 July.

"If [Fatah's] response is clear, then Hamas will go ahead and sign the conciliation agreement; otherwise, Hamas will not waste more of its time in continuing this dialogue," Az-Zahhar added.

The official insisted that previous talks had failed "due to Fatah's stubbornness in its positions and conditions, as well as its insistence on changing the electoral system into a fully proportionate one, in hopes they would get a majority in the next elections." Az-Zahhar expressed astonishment toward Fatah's insistence, which he said was "despite that all countries working in line with that system have realized its failure and changed over to a normal system."

He also expressed Hamas' wish to achieve Palestinian conciliation sooner than this summer, but "not on an agreement that would repeat the previous experience [between the two sides in 2007]," and noted that "Hamas went to Cairo and had six meetings with Fatah; all have achieved nothing until now."


TOPICS: Israel; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
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1 posted on 07/19/2009 1:34:39 PM PDT by SJackson
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

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In the real world this would mean no peace talks any time soon. Peace and talks being impossible when there's no government in control of the population or it's institutions.

2 posted on 07/19/2009 1:40:27 PM PDT by SJackson (the number-one job facing the middle class...a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S. Jobs)
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