Hamas’s foreign relations director Osama Hamdan said on Monday that the latest speech by the Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas was “irresponsible and desperate”.
In an interview with Palestine newspaper Hamdan said that the latest step taken by Abbas will negatively affect reconciliation and Palestinian national relations.
Abbas announced in a speech on Saturday that the PA will continue to gradually stop the transfer of funds to the Gaza Strip unless Hamas abides by the reconciliation terms.
Hamdan called for the immediate implementation of the reconciliation agreement starting with the formation of a national unity government that includes all Palestinian factions and assumes its responsibilities towards the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Ha pointed out that Abbas’s rejection of “national partnership” is the major obstacle to the initiative launched by the Egyptian president Abel Fattah al-Sisi to revive Palestinian reconciliation.
Speaking of the post-Abbas phase Hamdan said “We are not worried about this phase but it must follow four basic principles.”
The first principle according to the Hamas leader is that the Palestinian leadership must completely abandon any kind of coordination with Israel.
The second principle is to give the Palestinian people the freedom to choose their representatives in a fully democratic environment.
The third principle Hamdan added is based on the fact that any decisions made must take into account that we are in a national liberation stage that requires forms of political and administrative endeavors that are completely different from the way Abbas manages the Palestinian situation.
The fourth principle stipulates that all Palestinian factions must be included in any new national project without exception.
On Hamas’s relations with Iran the Hamas leader stressed the Movement’s keenness to build relations with all countries that have supportive positions toward the Palestinian resistance.
Hamdan slammed the Saudi newspaper al-Riyadh for describing Hamas as a “terrorist movement” and affirmed that the Arab criticisms which the newspaper received and which forced it later to withdraw its accusation indicates the Arab masses’ support for the Palestinian resistance.
