Abbas, Meshaal meet in Cairo to discuss reconciliation deal

The two parties are to discuss a number of issues inclusing Palestinian borders Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal meet in the Egyptian capital Cairo on Thursday in a bid to cement a reconciliation deal that has stalled for more than six months.
After a summer of scepticism over prospects for a real rapprochement between Abbas's secular Fatah movement and its Islamist rival Hamas, a new optimism has emerged in recent weeks.
"President Abbas intends to deploy all possible efforts to reach a global Palestinian agreement and reach an understanding on a common political vision for all the movements," senior Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmed told AFP in Cairo on Wednesday.
Hamas officials expressed similar sentiments about the talks, which are to begin at 11:00 am (0900 GMT)
"We want this meeting to open a new page and a new hope for the Palestinian people," Hamas deputy head Mussa Abu Marzuk told AFP on arrival in the Egyptian capital.
Izzat al-Rishq, another of the group's Damascus-based leadership, said the talks "will start with a face-to-face meeting between Abbas and Meshaal which will last about two hours."
On the agenda are key issues including the adoption of a unified Palestinian strategy, forming an interim government, reform of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and agreeing on a date for elections.
Rishq said Hamas was committed to finding a way to implement the reconciliation.
"We want unity and the end of the division so we can achieve our rights," he told AFP.
And he criticised Washington and the European Union, which have both warned they will not work with a government that includes Hamas unless the Islamists recognise Israel, renounce violence and agree to abide by previous governments.
"Unfortunately the Americans and Europeans have taken negative positions on the meeting between the brothers Meshaal and Abbas," Rishq said.
"This position is the result of their desire for the continuation of the Palestinian division so they can continue to impose their dictates on the Palestinian people."
If the talks are successful, there will be a follow-up meeting in December with all the Palestinian factions to finalise the agreements reached, officials said this week.
Hamas and Fatah, which respectively control the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, have long been political rivals, but tensions spilled over into deadly violence in 2007 with Hamas forces eventually routing their Fatah rivals and taking control of the Gaza Strip.
They signed a surprise agreement in May to end their long-standing bitter rivalry, but it has yet to be implemented.
It called for the immediate formation of an interim government to pave the way for presidential and parliamentary elections within a year.
But the two sides have so far failed to agree on the composition of the caretaker government and, in particular, who will head it.
Abbas is also -to name Ziad Abu Amr as the leader of the new Palestine unity government, sources have said.
Sources in ruling Palestinian party Fatah, which is headed by Abbas, have informed 'Arabstoday' that the president is to Meshaal of Amr's appointment when the two meet in Cairo.
Ziad Abu Amr is a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and a former Foreign Minister.
Sources added that Amr's reputation and and wordlwide contact base would help promote the future unity government without jeapordising the financial support the Palestinian Authority (PA) receives from international donors.
Other Palestinian sources stated that Abbas would try to convince the Hamas leadership to appoint Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who heads the present government, as Finance Minister in the new government.
Fayyad has long been seen as a barrier to reconciliation efforts between Hamas and Fatah, while Hamas had earlier refused to accept him as a leader of the unity government. However this does not mean that they will object to his appointment as Finance Minister.
Arab support for the unity government would depend heavily on Abbas's commitment to respecting the conditions set forth by the Quartet (consisting of the UN, US, EU and Russia).
Sources have said that Abbas will confirm to Meshaal that the government will be approved by him and the new presidential cabinet, who are also to decide on a number of contentious issues surrounding Palestine. These include recognition of the State of Israel and support of the Palestinian state based on 1967 borders which Hamas has categorically refused on many occassions, considering it to be a pre-requisite to uniting with Fatah.
Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman vowed on Wednesday that Israel would continue to withhold the transfer of tax funds to the Palestinians if a future unity government between Fatah and Hamas will not conform to principles outlined by the Mideast Quartet."Israel will not recognise it, will not negotiate with it, and will not transfer it even one cent," the Ha'aretz daily quoted Lieberman as saying at a meeting with Foreign Minister of Montenegro Milan Rocen in Jerusalem.
"We will not transfer money to those who are interested in destroying us," Lieberman stressed.
Israel has frozen the transfer of some 100 million U.S. dollar in tax revenue it collected on behalf of the Palestinian National Authority in October, a punitive measure that followed a UNESCO vote to accept the Palestinians as a full member of the organization.
On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's inner cabinet, also known as the Forum of Eight (senior ministers), decided to extend the freeze on the transfer of VAT and customs revenues that Israel collects under the terms of the 1993 Oslo Accord. The sum could climb to 200 million dollars by the end of November.
Discussions recently held by top officials reportedly center on the possibility that Israel might eventually accept a government that includes Hamas representatives and the conditions that would enable to cooperate with one.
"A complete rejection of the (Fatah-Hamas) agreement and the demand that the PNA (the Palestinian National Authority) distances itself from Hamas are no longer being discussed," one defence source, who spoke anonymously, told local media on Tuesday.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon called on Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hand over tax payments owed to the Palestinian Authority and to stop settlement activity in the occupied territories, his spokesman said.
The UN secretary general "stressed the need to de-escalate" Israeli-Palestinian tensions that have heightened since the Palestinian bid to become a member of the United Nations, said spokesman Martin Nesirky, giving an account of telephone talks between Ban and Netanyahu yesterday.