Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas pledged yesterday to pursue reconciliation efforts with the rival Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip even as they rejected his call for January elections.
“We are going to pursue our efforts for reconciliation” with Hamas, Abbas said a day after calling presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 24.
Abbas issued a decree late on Friday calling elections in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, in a move seen as turning up the heat on the Islamist group to sign a much-delayed Egyptian-brokered deal for Palestinian unity.
PHOTO: REUTERS
But Hamas — which trounced Abbas’s secular Fatah faction in the last parliamentary elections in January 2006 — rejected the move.
“This is an illegal and unconstitutional step because Abu Mazen’s [Abbas’] tenure is over and he has no right to issue any decree concerning this” election, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said on Friday.
He said Abbas was making a “deliberate attempt to make [Palestinian] divisions permanent,” by calling elections for January.
Hamas yesterday said that Abbas — whose term in office expired in early January this year — should be put on trial.
Abbas “must be tried for usurping power,” deputy Palestinian parliamentary speaker Ahmed Bahar told a news conference in Gaza City.
The decree calling elections “has no value whatsoever from a constitutional point of view,” he said.
Abbas was elected on Jan. 9, 2005, for a four-year term. The Palestinian Authority extended his presidency by one year so presidential and parliamentary elections could be held on the same date.
Hamas has consistently rejected the extension granted to Abbas, and does not consider him to be the legitimate president.
Yesterday Abbas said he was determined to proceed with organizing the polls.
“The elections decree is very serious. It is not a maneuver,” he told delegates of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s Central Committee gathered in Ramallah.
He insisted, however, that he would not close the door on efforts brokered by Egypt to patch up divisions between Hamas and Fatah.
“Even if we don’t succeed now, we will try again because reconciliation is in the interest of the Palestinian people,” Abbas said.
Hamas and Fatah have been at loggerheads for years, and efforts by Cairo to get the two to sign a unity deal this month failed.
Egypt proposed an agreement that would see new elections being held next June. Fatah has signed the agreement, but Hamas said it needed more time to study it.
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
EYES AT SEA: Many marine enthusiasts have expressed interest in volunteering for coastal patrols, which would help identify stowaways and illegal fishing, the CGA said Six thousand coastal patrol volunteers are to be recruited for 159 inspection offices to enhance the nation’s response to “gray zone” conflicts, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sources said yesterday. Volunteer teams would be established to increase the resilience of coastal defense systems in the wake of two unlawful entries attempted by Chinese over the past three months, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. A former Chinese navy captain drove a motorboat into the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Taipei on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, while another Chinese man sailed in a rubber boat into the Houkeng
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
‘ANONYMOUS 64’: A national security official said that it is an attempt by China to increase domestic anti-Taiwanese sentiment and inflame cross-strait tensions The Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM) yesterday denied accusations by China that it had undermined regional security by carrying out cyberattacks against targets in China, adding instead that Beijing was responsible for raising tensions and undermining regional peace. The Chinese Ministry of State Security on WeChat accused a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of targeting China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year through frequent cyberattacks. The group carried out cyberattacks to seize control of Web sites, outdoor electronic billboards and video-on-demand platforms in China, Hong Kong and Macau, it said, adding the hackers’