Cairo: Senior Hamas official Mahmud Zahar
slammed a Palestinian unity deal as a "mistake" that has
thrown the Islamist movement into crisis, in an interview with
Egypt`s official MENA agency published on Sunday.
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal signed an agreement with
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas earlier this month placing
Abbas at the head of an interim government charged with
organising elections later this year.
The decision to have Abbas head the government "is a
mistake," Zahar told MENA. "No one inside the Hamas movement
was consulted."
The deal signed in Qatar ends a long-running disagreement
over the premiership that stalled Palestinian reconciliation,
but Zahar said that "practically it cannot be implemented."
"If the consultations took place among the small circle
around the political bureau (headed by Meshaal abroad), then
this is unacceptable," he said.
The agreement "needs to be reviewed, so Hamas leaders at
home and abroad will meet over the issue in the coming two
days." He said after a series of discussions with Hamas
officials and MPs "we found that many feel there is a real
crisis."
The agreement struck by Meshaal`s foreign-based
leadership with Abbas`s secular Fatah faction has run into
serious opposition from Hamas members inside the Gaza Strip,
which the movement has controlled since ousting the
president`s loyalists in 2007.
PTI
