Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh Gaza – Mohammed Habib Palestinian government spokesman Taher al-Nono has announced that Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh will not participate in the Non-Aligned Movement summit to be held in Tehran later this month. Haniyeh apologised for not attending "so as not to deepen the Palestinian, Arab and Islamic split".
Nono said in a press statement that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's invitation to Haniyeh for the NAM summit "reflected a continuation of Iran's support for the Palestinian cause".
He added : "The PM agreed to participate in the last few days, but he is apologising now so as to not involve the government in deepening the split between Palestine, Arab and Islamic countries on the  Palestinian issue
Palestinian resistance movement Hamas announced Sunday that Haniyeh would not take part in the NAM summit to be held in Tehran on August 30 and 31.
The Gaza-based movement's information centre said on its website that extensive consultations in the last hours between senior Hamas leaders and the Palestinian government in Gaza resulted in the decision.
The centre quoted Hamas sources who wished to remain anonymous as saying that two key factors led to the decision. The first was the concern on unifying Palestinian ranks, not entrenching decisions, and not to make Gaza a separate entity of the Palestinian state. The second factor was the current situation in Syria, and the different attitudes toward solving the crisis and continuing bloodshed.
NAM spokesperson Mohammad Reza Forghani said Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, was not invited to the summit.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki declared on Sunday that Iran has informed the Palestinian Authority officially that there was no call for Haniyeh to attend the summit.
Sources revealed the reason for Iran’s apology to PM Ismail Haniyeh for not inviting him to the summit in Tehran two days later.
The sources said that Haniyeh's invitation was sent by Iran's supreme authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's invitation was made official by Ahmadinejad.
The Coordinating Council of Non-Aligned Countries in New York protested at Khamenei's intervention and threatened to charge Iran if Palestine did not attend and the summit failed. This forced Iran's Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi to phone Haniyeh on 9am Sunday and withdraw the invitation, forcing Haniyeh to announce the news saying he had finally "declined the invitation in the public interest" despite his office repeatedly announcing his acceptance.
However, Haniyeh's office wanted to refuse the invitation and justify the position in the media in front of his supporters. The decision was received by praise and approval without any suspicions that Iran had formally withdrawn the invite.
The sources said the reason Khamenei invited Haniyeh arose from a controversial dispute between Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and the Iranian leader.
Khamenei apparently wanted to send a message to Morsi that Iran wielded more influence in Palestine than Egypt.
In order to confirm the allegations, the source said that Morsi would not participate in the summit and would only attend to formally hand over the rotating presidency of the session, after which he would leave Tehran in protest of their political position.
Iran folded to Hamas the cold attitude towards its ally Bashar al-Assad to swap the position of Egypt towards Syria in exchange for the position of Palestine.
Palestinian President Abbas is reportedly angry in the heart of Ramallah, as he is the one who challenged US and Israeli pressure and decided to respond to the invitation of Iran's President Ahmadinejad, but he now feels that Tehran cannot be trusted.
The sources said that President Abbas was disappointed with Tehran’s attitude and was reluctant to attend the summit.
"He said he would not believe Iran any more, even if he was forced to go this time. He trusts the nationalism of President Morsi thousand times more than President Ahmadinejad," said the source.
The same sources confirmed that the head of Hamas's political bureau, Khaled Meshaal, advised Ismail Haniyeh |not to play this game and be dragged into it".
"Haniyeh fought emotionally until Iran withdrew its invitation which embarrassed him before his followers and the international media. Iran wanted to satisfy all parties at once but it ended up losing support instead," said the source.