PA official calls for "reconciliation" with Hamas: "Hamas never was and never will be a terrorist movement"
“Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat called on Hamas to implement the Cairo and Doha Agreements (reconciliation attempts between Fatah and Hamas signed in 2012) to allow the people to decide (i.e., hold elections) and realize the national reconciliation...
[Erekat said this] in a speech [he] gave during a meeting on the issue of ‘the state of the negotiations and its horizons,’ held two days ago as part of the third annual conference of the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Strategic Studies - Masarat, whose title was ‘The Strategy of Resistance’…
Erekat said: ‘We call on Hamas – today more than ever before – to begin implementing the Cairo and Doha Agreements in order to allow the people to decide, because when Palestinian political parties are divided, they must turn to the ballot boxes, not the ammunition boxes.’
He added: ‘I am telling everyone, on behalf of President Mahmoud Abbas and the [PLO] Executive Committee, that Hamas is a Palestinian movement, which never was and never will be a terrorist movement. We can agree or disagree with them, but the main thing now is that this step is one of reconciliation. There is no Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and there is no State of Palestine without the Gaza Strip. If we don’t help ourselves on this matter, no one will help us.’”
[Erekat said this] in a speech [he] gave during a meeting on the issue of ‘the state of the negotiations and its horizons,’ held two days ago as part of the third annual conference of the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Strategic Studies - Masarat, whose title was ‘The Strategy of Resistance’…
Erekat said: ‘We call on Hamas – today more than ever before – to begin implementing the Cairo and Doha Agreements in order to allow the people to decide, because when Palestinian political parties are divided, they must turn to the ballot boxes, not the ammunition boxes.’
He added: ‘I am telling everyone, on behalf of President Mahmoud Abbas and the [PLO] Executive Committee, that Hamas is a Palestinian movement, which never was and never will be a terrorist movement. We can agree or disagree with them, but the main thing now is that this step is one of reconciliation. There is no Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and there is no State of Palestine without the Gaza Strip. If we don’t help ourselves on this matter, no one will help us.’”