Friday, January 02, 2009

Saudis blame Hamas amid calls for talks with Fatah

From The Guardian, Thursday 1 January 2009, by Ian Black, Middle East editor:

Saudi Arabia yesterday blamed Hamas for Israel's continuing offensive in the Gaza Strip and urged it to resolve bitter differences with the western-backed Palestinian Authority - even as divisions deepened with a new charge of treachery.

Arab League foreign ministers meeting in emergency session in Cairo warned it was not possible to help until the Islamist movement in control of Gaza returned to national unity talks with its rival Fatah.

A furious Hamas attacked the Arab League stance as "pathetic". Spokesman Fawzi Barhoum also accused Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, of ordering members of Fatah in Gaza to gather intelligence on the whereabouts of Hamas leaders to pass to Israel ....

Discussions between Arab states were sharp too, amid bickering over calls for an emergency summit conference in Qatar tomorrow. "Everyone is watching as the intensity of Arab-Arab disputes increase," warned the league's secretary general, Amr Moussa.

......Syria and Gulf maverick Qatar want a summit. But they met fierce resistance from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the western-backed Arab states that are most hostile to Hamas....

No comments: