Exiled Hamas leader in Syria Khaled Meshaal on Friday called for
dialogue with the rival Fatah movement after days of infighting
between the two groups in Gaza.
"What is needed now is to deal with the Palestinian split,"
Meshaal told a press conference here, saying Hamas, or the Islamic
Resistance Movement, supported the Arab sponsorship of a dialogue
in the Palestinian national interest.
Meshaal stated that Hamas respects Mahmoud Abbas as the
Palestinian president and wants to cooperate with him for the
"national interest" of the Palestinians.
The supremo of Hamas also said that his group was forced to take
over Gaza which he said was an "emergency measure" that was not a
confrontation with Fatah.
"We were forced to take this emergency measure. We did not want
to take it but we were forced to do it," Meshaal said, noting that
the lack of security drove the crisis toward explosion.
"We want brotherhood with the sons of the Fatah movement. This
was not a confrontation with Fatah. Our crisis is not with Fatah,"
he added.
Meshaal also blamed elements in Fatah for the insecurity in Gaza
while calling for a restructure of the Palestinian security
forces.
"We need to restructure the Palestinian security apparatus to be
a national force chosen according to merit and not on a factional
basis," he said.
Meshaal made the remarks hours after an emergency meeting of the
Arab foreign ministers in Cairo on the escalation on the
Palestinian territories.
Following Hamas' violent seizure of power in Gaza Strip this
week, which has cost 80 lives, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
dissolved the Hamas-Fatah coalition government Thursday and
declared a state of emergency.
(Xinhua News Agency June 16, 2007)
