Fatah official: Consensus government has nothing to do with recognising Israel

A member of Fatah’s Central Committee, Azzam Al-Ahmad, has confirmed that consultations “are now quietly taking place to form a government of national consensus and will be completed before the five-week period set for them comes to an end” in accordance with the reconciliation agreement reached with the Hamas movement.

Fatah’s media department quoted Al-Ahmad’s remarks that were given to Jordanian newspaper Al-Ghad on Monday, in which he said: “The tasks and the powers of the new government are defined in accordance with the Palestinian Basic Law, as well as with the additional exceptional burdens, such as the treatment of the division’s consequences, community reconciliation, preparations for elections and the reconstruction of Gaza.”

He also emphasised that: “The newly formed government will have nothing to do with recognising Israel or negotiations, like previous governments which did not interfere with those dossiers at all, because the Oslo agreement of 1993 prevents the government from getting involved in the field of foreign relations.”

He explained that: “The security file has already been taken care of in the National Accord Convention of 2009, which was signed in May 2011 in Cairo and concerns the consolidation of security services, working for them and their number in accordance with the Civil Service Law in the Palestinian Security Forces for the year 2005.”

According to Al-Ahmed, Hamas’s talk about the work and the concept of the security services, and the way it takes the resistance weapons out of context, is not in accordance with what was agreed upon by both parties previously.

He pointed out that, “forming the new government is our priority right now. After completing this task, a committee will be formed for developing and activating the Palestine Liberation Organisation.”

Al-Ahmed also criticised other statements made by some of Hamas’s leaders, which he says aim at “disturbing the atmosphere of reconciliation”, adding that “there are people who are comfortable with and benefit from the continuation of the divisions, and they are alarmed by the reconciliation agreement because it is against their interest, as the agreement does not serve the external parties that they are associated with.”

He added that “since the reconciliation agreement has been signed on 23 April, Hamas’s West Bank-based parties have issued provocative and vexing statements against the reconciliation, which aim to disturb the atmospheres, but Fatah has decided not to give them the opportunity and not to allow them to achieve their goals.”