19 June 2016•Update: 20 June 2016
By Mohamed Maged
GAZA CITY
Rival Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas have traded blame for the failure of Doha-hosted talks aimed at implementing a 2014 reconciliation agreement.
“The Doha talks showed that Hamas was not yet ready for national unity and political partnership,” Fatah spokesman Osama al-Qawasmi told Anadolu Agency on Saturday.
He claimed that Hamas movement only cares for resolving the group’s financial difficulties.
“What Hamas has proposed in Doha was only meant to obstruct dialogue and undermine efforts aimed at healing rifts,” he said, giving no further details about the content of Hamas’ proposals during the talks.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, for his part, blamed Fatah for the failure of the Doha talks.
He said Fatah group, which is led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has pulled back on promises to “revive the Palestinian Legislative Council (parliament) and resolve the problem of Gaza employees, who have no paid for months.
“Fatah insists on imposing the platform of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is rejected by Hamas,” he said.
In April of 2014, Hamas and Fatah signed a long-awaited reconciliation agreement that called for the formation of a Palestinian unity government tasked with overseeing Palestinian legislative and presidential polls.
Although the unity government was unveiled two months later, it has yet to take on a governing role in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, while the relationship between the two factions remains beset by a host of longstanding differences.
Representatives of the two rival groups held a series of meetings in Doha in an effort to discuss means of implementing the agreement, but no breakthrough has been made.
