CAIRO: A dozen Palestinian groups launched a long-awaited dialogue yesterday and laid out a plan to tackle key issues that could reunite Palestinians after 18 months of schism between Gaza and the West Bank.
All parties say they hope the dialogue will lead to a new national unity government to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza after a three-week Israeli offensive and then to organize presidential and parliamentary elections.
The participants agreed to form five committees to deal with issues such as the formation of the Cabinet, presidential and legislative elections and security services.
“The atmosphere was positive,” said Walid Al-Awad, member of the political bureau of the communist People’s Party. “The makeup of the committees has been agreed,” he said.
He said the committees would begin their work March 10 and finish before the end of the month. An Arab diplomat said Wednesday the Egyptian mediators hoped to complete a deal in time for endorsement by an Arab summit in Qatar in late March.
The United States and European governments want the Palestinians to set up a government of nonpartisan technocrats.
That would spare them the problem of deciding how to deal with representatives of Hamas, which they call a terrorist group.
The West had shunned a previous national unity government headed by Hamas after it had won parliamentary elections in 2006. Many Arabs and Palestinians said Western powers were punishing the Palestinians for their democratic choice.
