There were positive signals from talks brokered by Egypt with Palestinian factions, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in New Delhi yesterday.
Speaking to reporters at the conclusion of a four-day visit to India, Abbas also said a decision on elections in the Palestinian Territories — presidential and legislative — would be held after an Arab proposal based on the Egypt-brokered talks was made.
He said the proposal was expected by the end of this month or early next month.
Egypt has been holding separate talks with leaders of different Palestinian factions in a bid to end political separation between the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the Palestinian National Authority-ruled West Bank.
Hamas wrested control of the Gaza Strip in June last year from the security forces of Abbas’ more moderate Fatah movement.
The Hamas unity government was deposed by Abbas after it seized Gaza and he appointed Salem Fayyad as Palestinian prime minister.
Hamas has tightened its control of the Gaza Strip since and refuses to recognize Fayyad’s government. It has also demanded that fresh presidential elections be held as Abbas has completed his term.
“According to our basic law and election law the presidential and legislative elections should be held at the same time,” Abbas said. “So that’s why we are waiting for the Arab proposal. As soon as the Arab proposal is ready, the sooner we will have elections.”
Hamas is believed to be against early legislative elections.
Egypt is expected to prepare a complete document on the talks soon and it would then be discussed, Abbas said.
Abbas said he had excellent bilateral talks with Indian leaders and these included discussions on the internal situation in the Palestinian Territories. The Palestinian Authority appreciated India’s economic and political support, he said.
About India’s increasing ties with the US, Abbas said: “We do not interfere in the sovereign decisions of a nation.”
Asked whether a change of leadership in the US would bring positive results for peace in the Middle East, Abbas said: “We hope.”
His government would start negotiating with Israeli leader Tzipi Livni as soon as she forms a government, Abbas said.
While outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Livni could not be compared, “both belong to the same political party and have the same political tendency,” he said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema