Hamas and Fatah sign reconciliation agreement

The leaders of Fatah and Hamas, the main Palestinian factions, have signed a deal in Cairo aimed at ending their four-year rift.

Palestinian president and Fatah party leader Mahmoud Abbas said Palestinians had decided to "turn the dark page of division for ever".
Mr Abbas and Hamas's Khaled Meshaal had not met since the expulsion of Fatah from Gaza in 2007.

Fatah and Hamas have been bitterly divided for more than four years

That expulsion followed a shock Hamas election victory a year earlier.
Correspondents say the recent Arab uprisings have given fresh momentum to reconciliation.
The agreement paves the way for a joint interim government ahead of national elections next year.
The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority runs parts of the West Bank, while Hamas governs Gaza.
'Certain of success' "We are certain of success so long as we're united... Reconciliation clears the way not only to putting the Palestinian house in order but also to a just peace," Mr Abbas said.
He added that Israel must now "choose between settlements and peace".
Mr Meshaal said that the Islamist group's "only fight is with Israel" and that the dispute with Mr Abbas's Fatah faction was "behind us".
The UN special co-ordinator for the Middle East peace process, Robert Serry, is also in Cairo to attend the ceremony, along with Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil al-Arabi and Arab League chief Amr Moussa.

Palestinians have been celebrating the deal

Correspondents say it is a first sign of how political changes in the Arab world could affect the dynamic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had been wary of bolstering Hamas, but the new Cairo government has adopted a less hostile stance towards the Islamist group.
The two rival Palestinian leaders carry with them the hopes of millions of Arabs for an end to the infighting that has so weakened the Palestinian cause, says the BBC's Jonathan Head in Cairo.
The first step after the agreement goes into effect will be to form an interim government of technocrats whose task will be to work on reconciliation and prepare for new elections.
Leading members of Hamas and Fatah will stay out of this government for now.
But there are deep differences yet to be resolved over whether to recognise and negotiate with Israel, and over how to share security in Gaza and the West Bank, our correspondent says.

The reconciliation move has angered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has said the Palestinian Authority must choose either to make peace with Israel or with Hamas.

Israel has suspended tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority, with the Israeli finance minister saying payments would be stopped until it was clear money would not go to militants in Hamas.
Meanwhile, it remains unclear whether Western powers will deal with the new government that is to emerge from the unity deal.
The Quartet of mediators - the US, the EU, the UN and Russia - has long demanded that Hamas renounce violence and recognise the principle of Israel's right to exist.
In recent months, tens of thousands of Palestinians have taken to the streets in Gaza and the West Bank to ask for political unity, amid calls for democracy elsewhere in the region.
Correspondents say that while the protests were not on the scale of those elsewhere, they clearly got the attention of Palestinian political leaders.

 BBC

Posted in: Mid-East,Politics