WEST BANK/JERUSALEM: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's office and Hamas row over unity government/ Israeli cabinet approves government inquiry of Lebanon war

The ruling Hamas movement and President Mahmoud Abbas's office accused each other on Sunday (September 17) of trying to derail a planned Palestinian unity government that officials hope will lift Western sanctions. In Gaza City Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas denied that talks on forming a coalition government had been frozen by Abbas. Haniyeh said talks would only be put on hold while Abbas was attending meetings at the United Nations this week. Abbas aides had earlier said negotiations were frozen because Hamas had reneged on the terms of the deal to form a coalition government. "I assure all parties that there is no retreat. There is an agreement between myself and President Abbas to resume the dialogue when he comes back," Haniyeh told reporters. The row underscores the difficulties forming a unity government between two factions that have starkly different views of Israel and threatens to unravel efforts to restore direct Western aid that was cut when Hamas took office in March. Hamas seeks Israel's destruction while Abbas and his Fatah movement want a two-state solution through negotiations. One Abbas aide, Ahmad Abdel-Rahman, said the Hamas militant movement had reneged on the unity government deal, which Abbas and Haniyeh agreed last Monday. He added that talks would be frozen until Abbas returned from a trip to New York this week where he will attend the UN General Assembly. In response to Fatah statements Haniyeh said they were made by politicians who wish to jeopardise the formation of a unity government. On Saturday (September 16), Haniyeh insisted a document, penned by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails that serves as the basis for the unity guidelines, "does not recognise the occupation" -- Hamas's term for Israel -- nor accepts existing peace deals. The unity coalition deal states the new government would "honour" past peace agreements including the 1993 Oslo peace accords, Abbas aides have said. U.S. officials say the terms of the unity deal fall short of three conditions laid down by the Quartet of Middle East mediators -- that any Palestinian government recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept interim peace accords. Palestinian officials have said Abbas would meet U.S. President George W. Bush on the sidelines of the UN meeting on Wednesday. The White House said it could not confirm or deny talks were planned. Israeli Cabinet Minister Meir Sheetrit said the Jewish state was not interested in verbal gymnastics from the new government. "They have to recognise every agreement that has been signed by the PLO. They have to recognise the state of Israel, and delete the item calling for the destruction of the State of Israel. And if they do so, then it will be an open door for renegotiation for peace," Sheetrit told Reuters. But the European Union has praised Abbas's deal with Hamas and suggested direct aid could be renewed. Elsewhere, in Jerusalem, Israel's cabinet appointed a commission to investigate the way the government and military handled the Lebanon war, bowing to calls for an inquiry but rejecting veterans' demands for an independent probe. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has come under fire from critics who say he launched an ill-prepared campaign in Lebanon that failed to crush the Lebanese Hizbollah guerrilla group after it abducted two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid in July. Hizbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets into Israel during the 34-day conflict and Israeli reservists who fought in Lebanon have complained of poor planning and tactics. Thousands of Israelis have taken part in protests to demand an independent inquiry into the war by a so-called state commission whose members would be appointed by a supreme court judge. As the meeting took place dozens of Israelis staged a protest outside Olmert's office. The protesters placed a chair reading: 'prime minister seat' on a donkey's back and chanted 'fig leaf', referring to Olmert's new appointed commission. Olmert has said such an investigation, which in past Israeli-Arab wars has led to high-level resignations, would be too time-consuming. Instead, the cabinet approved by a vote of 20-2, with one abstention, Olmert's nomination of a retired judge and four other members to a panel that will examine how political leaders and military commanders conducted the war. Amir Peretz, who serves as Olmert's defence minister and leader of his main coalition partner, the centre-left Labour Party, voted in favour of the government-appointed panel, the Defence Ministry said. Peretz had pushed for an independent probe of the war in which 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers, and nearly 1,200 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, were killed before the fighting ended in a UN-brokered truce on August 14. "I very much hope that the panel will complete its work in the near future, as soon as possible, and will assist the State of Israel in better preparing for the challenges that await us," Olmert said at the cabinet session. The retired judge heading the commission, Eliyahu Winograd, can ask the justice minister to grant the panel the same powers of subpoena and witness immunity an independent, "state inquiry" would enjoy. Other members of the inquiry board include two reserve generals, a jurist and a public policy professor.

ITN Source | September 17, 2006

Tags:. .chanted. .retreat. .nor. .frozen. .difficulties