Jerusalem – Leaders of rival Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas will meet today in a new venue, but they confront the same obstacles to a power-sharing arrangement that have torpedoed past negotiations.
The two sides will gather in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in what could be a final attempt to form a unity government aimed at ending their year-long power struggle and breaking the Western aid embargo imposed after Hamas won parliamentary elections in January 2006.
Stakes are high. The talks come after a new spate of factional clashes in the Gaza Strip that left more than two dozen Palestinians dead and dimmed hopes of resolving the deadlock through peaceful negotiations.
A 2-day-old cease-fire in the Gaza Strip appeared to be largely holding Monday, although a Hamas official was abducted in the West Bank city of Ramallah, most likely by Fatah gunmen.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah has said he will call early elections if talks over forming a unity government fail again. Hamas rejects early elections as illegal, accusing Fatah of seeking its ouster. Many Palestinians worry that a failure to reach accommodation could plunge the Gaza Strip and West Bank into further violence and continued economic hardship.
Abbas and his party’s delegation will meet with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and other key representatives of the radical Islamist group.
Abbas met Meshaal, a hard-liner based in Damascus, in the Syrian capital last month. But the pair did not break the impasse between their groups.
