The two main terrorist organizations competing for control over the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Fatah, have agreed to form a unified transitional government until the end of 2009, when they will hold new PA-wide elections. The make-up of the new government has yet to be decided.
The Fatah and Hamas negotiators, along with representatives of 11 other PA factions, on Thursday adjourned unity talks they have been holding in Cairo, Egypt. The sides are returning to the PA for internal factional consultations regarding the proposed agreement and outstanding issues.
In a statement, a negotiator from the jihadist Hamas organization, Fawzi Barhoum said the Cairo meetings succeeded in producing agreement on a PA government "whose specific job will be to hold elections before the end of the year." While the personnel of the transitional governing body and other issues remain matters of contention, Barhoum said that the sides "agreed on the nature of the upcoming government. The deal is to form a temporary unity government and work on preparing for the upcoming elections."
The head of the small, Syrian-supported Palestine Liberation Front, Wasel Abu-Yusuf, was quoted in Egyptian and Western media as saying that there are still unresolved issues to be discussed at future multilateral meetings. As a small indication of the lack of clarity in the interim understandings, Abu Yusuf gave the election deadline as January 25, 2010.
The PA terrorist groups and factions have been discussing reconciliation since Hamas executed a coup against PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah in Gaza in 2007. Hamas claimed authority after having successfully won PA legislative elections in a landslide in January 2006, even though Abbas retained the formal PA leadership. A series of bloody purges in Gaza and counter-purges elsewhere in the PA ensued.
The issues on the internal PA negotiating table in Egypt include the formation of a unity government and elections, the reconstruction of the PLO to include Hamas, and relations with Israel and the West.