CAIRO: Reconciliation talks between rival Palestinian factions which had been set to resume next week in Egypt have been delayed again for another month, Egypt s official MENA news agency reported on Sunday.
The talks are now set to take place in late September after Eid Al-Fitr, the celebration following the Muslim holy month of Ramadan which started on Saturday, MENA said, quoting an unnamed Egyptian official.
Egypt has been mediating talks between the Fatah faction of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and the Islamist Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip to try to seal a deal ahead of a Palestinian election in 2010.
Discussions have centered on a new electoral law as well as the make-up of security forces and of a committee to liaise between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank ahead of the vote.
Egypt had initially set July 7 as a date for an agreement to be signed, but talks have been repeatedly delayed because of lingering differences between Fatah and Hamas.
Intelligence chief Omar Suleiman – Cairo s pointman on the talks – has entrusted his deputy Mohammed Ibrahim to try to bridge the gap between the two factions in a mission of shuttle diplomacy started last week.
The aim is to remove all the remaining differences between the factions and pave the way for a meeting in Cairo after Eid Al-Fitr to sign a reconciliation agreement and announce an end to Palestinian divisions, the official said.
Ibrahim has been shuttling between Damascus, where Hamas politburo leaders are based, and Abbas s headquarters in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, since last Monday.
Fatah and Hamas accuse each other of persecuting rival supporters in the territories under their control, while human rights groups have accused both groups of making arbitrary arrests and mistreating detainees. -AFP
