CAIRO, January 19 (RIA Novosti) -Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Monday for all Palestinian factions to hold talks in Egypt as soon as possible to reconcile their differences.
“What is really appropriate and necessary is that we all meet … immediately on Egyptian territory,” Abbas said at an Arab League economic summit in Kuwait.
The Fatah leader said the aim of the meeting would be to reach an intra-Palestinian agreement “after thousands of hours of talks.”
Egypt has traditionally played the role of mediator in intra-Palestinian negotiations. Late last year it pushed for talks on its plan to unify the Palestinian political system, which proposed synchronizing the presidential and parliamentary terms as well as other political reforms.
In June 2007, the Islamist Hamas and the pro-presidential Fatah movements split because of political differences and Hamas expelled Fatah from the Gaza Strip in violent street warfare. The West recognizes Abbas and Fatah as the Palestinian government and calls Hamas a terrorist group.
Israel started pulling troops out of Gaza on Sunday, more than three weeks after the start of its assault on the Palestinian enclave of 1.5 million. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has promised European leaders that Israel will finish the process “as soon as possible.”
Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire at 2 a.m. local time (0000 GMT) on Sunday, saying it had achieved all its objectives. Several hours after Israel’s announcement, Hamas, which runs Gaza, also declared an immediate ceasefire, adding that the militants had given Israel a week to withdraw its troops.
Israel launched its attack on Gaza on December 27, targeting Hamas infrastructure in a bid to put an end to rocket attacks by Palestinian militants on Israeli border towns. The military operation left over 1,300 Palestinians dead, the majority of them civilians. Thirteen Israelis, 10 of them military personnel, lost their lives in the fighting.