Aljir – President Palestine Mahmoud Abbas and leaders Hamas Ismail Haniyeh had a rare meeting this week. This is the first meeting between the two leaders to be made public in five years.
As reported AFPWednesday (6/7/2022), a rare meeting between Abbas and Haniyeh was held on the sidelines of the independence anniversary Algeria. Algerian state television reported at midnight Tuesday (5/7) that representatives of Palestine and Hamas were also attending the meeting.
The meeting was called ‘historic’ by Algerian state television in a report.
Abbas and Haniyeh were met by Algerian President Abdelmajid Tebboune in the Algiers capital. The third meeting was to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Algeria’s independence from France.
Discussions between Abbas and Haniyeh, as well as Tebboune, were not further elaborated by the Algerian state television report.
The Palestinian and Hamas leaders were last known to have formally met face-to-face in Doha, Qatar, in October 2016.
Abbas’s Fatah party dominates the Palestinian Authority, which controls the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Fatah has been at odds with Hamas since elections held in 2007, when Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip.
During the meeting, Tebboune and Abbas also signed a document naming a road section in Ramallah, West Bank, with the country name ‘Algeria’.
In addition to hosting Abbas and Haniyeh, Tebboune on Tuesday (5/7) local time, also hosted several foreign leaders and officials. Invited guests from several countries watched a massive military parade to commemorate independence in 1962, when Algeria broke away from 132 years of French occupation.
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(nvc/ita)
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